France's new foreign minister said on Tuesday there were only a few weeks to revive Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, although a senior U.S. official made clear Washington had set no such deadline.
Catherine Colonna told lawmakers the situation was no longer tenable. She accused Iran of using delaying tactics and, during talks in Doha two weeks ago, of going back on previously agreed positions while forging ahead with its uranium enrichment programme.
"There is still a window of opportunity ... for Iran to finally decide to accept an accord which it worked to build, but time is passing," Colonna said, warning that if Iran kept on its current trajectory it would be a threshold nuclear arms state.
"Time is passing. Tehran must realise this," she said, adding that the U.S. mid-term elections would make it even harder to seal a deal. "The window of opportunity will close in a few weeks. There will not be a better accord to the one which is on the table," Reuters cited her as saying.
