Tehran’s top diplomat said that on Saturday that 2025 will see significant developments regarding his country’s nuclear program, in a possible acknowledgment of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to apply “maximum pressure” on the Islamic Republic.
“2025 will be an important year regarding Iran’s nuclear issue,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters in Beijing. In statements broadcast on Iranian state television, Araqchi said he had discussed the matter with his Chinese counterpart. He neither mentioned Trump nor elaborated on why 2025 might be pivotal.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s transition team is weighing two main options to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including airstrikes.
In 2018, the U.S. under Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Under that deal, Iran had committed to scale back uranium enrichment—an activity that can produce materials for nuclear weapons—in exchange for relief from U.S. and U.N. economic sanctions.
Trump snapped the sanctions back on, applying what he described on several occasions as “maximum pressure” on Tehran to drop its nuclear program and abandon its sponsorship of terrorism.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has become the only non-nuclear state to have uranium enriched to 60%, a short technical step from the military-grade level.
The U.K., France, and Germany earlier this month called on Tehran to “reverse its nuclear escalation,” saying that there is no “credible civilian justification” for the amount of highly enriched uranium it is stockpiling.
On Saturday, the Iranian rial hit a record low against the U.S. dollar, reflecting uncertainty ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
The rial plummeted to 820,500 per dollar on the unofficial market. Since Trump’s election in November, the rial has depreciated by about 18%.