Iran says will hold nuclear talks with France, Germany, UK on Friday 

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Iran said on Sunday that it would hold nuclear talks in the coming days with the three European countries that initiated a censure resolution against it adopted by the U.N.'s atomic watchdog.

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the meeting of the deputy foreign ministers of Iran, France, Germany and the United Kingdom would take place on Friday, without specifying a venue.

"A range of regional and international issues and topics, including the issues of Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the nuclear issue, will be discussed," the spokesman said in a foreign ministry statement.

Baghaei described the coming meeting as a continuation of talks held with the countries in September on the sidelines of the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

On Thursday, the 35-nation board of governors of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency adopted a resolution denouncing Iran for what it called a lack of cooperation.

The move came as tensions ran high over Iran's atomic program, which critics fear is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon -- something Tehran has repeatedly denied.

It also came after IAEA head Rafael Grossi returned from a trip to Tehran, where he appeared to have made headway.

During the visit, Iran agreed to an IAEA demand to cap its sensitive stock of near weapons-grade uranium enriched up to 60 percent purity.

In response to the resolution, Iran announced it was launching a "series of new and advanced centrifuges."

Centrifuges enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).

"We will substantially increase the enrichment capacity with the utilization of different types of advanced machines," Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran's atomic energy organization spokesman, told state TV.

The country, however, also said it planned to continue its "technical and safeguards cooperation with the IAEA.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in power since July and a supporter of dialogue with Western countries, has said he wants to remove "doubts and ambiguities" about his country's nuclear program.

In 2015, Iran and world powers reached an agreement that saw the easing of international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump and reimposed biting economic sanctions, which prompted Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments.

Tehran has since 2021 decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices monitoring the nuclear program and barring U.N. inspectors.

At the same time, it has increased its stockpiles of enriched uranium and the level of enrichment to 60 percent.

That level is close, according to the IAEA, to the 90 percent-plus threshold required for a nuclear warhead, and substantially higher than the 3.67 percent limit it agreed to in 2015.