French foreign minister urges Iran: Accept nuclear deal

UNITED. NATIONS (AP) — France’s foreign minister on Monday urged Iran to take the last offer on the table to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and key powers aimed at reining in its nuclear program. The window of opportunity, she said, “is about to close.”

In a wide-ranging press conference on the sidelines of this week’s gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, Catherine Colonna said the window was open a bit at the end of August, but Iran “came back” with other issues linked to its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament.

She gave no details. But under the treaty’s provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals one day. Nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement with the five nuclear powers and Germany, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents. President Joe Biden’s administration has been working to renew the agreement, which placed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which Iran insists it has never received.

Referring to the six other parties to the nuclear deal, Colonna said: “We have repeatedly said, each of us, sometimes together as last week, that there will be no better offer on the table for Iran, and that the onus is really on Iran to make its decision.”

On another nuclear issue, Colonna said France will be convening a meeting Wednesday with U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi on the precarious state of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine. plant, Europe’s largest, which is occupied by Russia but still operated by Ukraine.

There has been shelling in and around the plant, and Colonna said she spoke to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Monday morning on the need for Ukraine, Russia, and all countries in the world “to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.”

She said Lavrov seemed to be “open to listening to some detailed proposal” by Grossi who has called for a “nuclear safety and security protection zone” around the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Colonna accused Russia of attacking the foundations of the United Nations by waging its unjustified war against Ukraine “in a very brutal way” with shelling of civilian targets, violent acts, “rapes, torture and forced liquidation.”

“All of these are war crimes,” she said.

The French minister said Russia is crossing three thresholds in the war: the legal threshold by violating the rules of relations between states in the U.N. Charter that call for peaceful settlement of disputes; the moral threshold “by the extent of the crimes committed in Ukraine”; and the political threshold by destabilizing global food and energy security.

Colonna also called on China to stop its “very aggressive” behavior toward Taiwan. She stressed that “the status quo must not be questioned by China and not by using means that are not peaceful.” Her comments followed Biden’s statement broadcast Sunday on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that American forces would defend Taiwan if Beijing tries to invade.

China’s government on Monday denounced the U.S. president’s remarks, saying they violate a U.S. commitment not to support formal independence for Taiwan, a step Beijing has said would lead to war. Biden’s comment added to displays of official American support for the island democracy in the face of growing shows of force by the mainland’s ruling Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.

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Edith M. Lederer is chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press and has been covering international affairs for more than half a century. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly.