'Sad Irony,' says Iran as IAEA holds emergency meeting on nuclear deal

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday termed as a "sad irony" the convening of an emergency meeting by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the behest of the United States despite the Trump administration "ruining" the 2015 nuclear deal.

The meeting is currently underway to discuss the current status of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), at the request of the US, which unilaterally withdrew from the treaty last year and re-imposed sanctions on Tehran, including on its oil and banking sectors, The Russia Today reported.

"On the one side, Americans described the JCPOA as the worst possible deal and withdrew from it without any excuse and on the other side, when Iran reduced its commitments to the deal, they all expressed concern; while all should concern about the US that has violated the whole deal," the state media quoted Rouhani as saying.

"They have called for an emergency meeting of [the] Board of Governors, asking why Iran has abandoned some of its JCPOA commitments. This is a funny story that the US is following and such measures are rare in the world's political history," the president added.

Iran has yet to withdraw fully from the agreement but it recently announced its decision to increase nuclear enrichment in response to the new US sanctions.

On Monday, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran announced that the country has officially surpassed the 3.67 per cent uranium enrichment limit set under the 2015 nuclear deal and could consider increasing the stockpile to 20 per cent in the future.

Rouhani said that Iran's moves were within the framework of the deal and rejected a warning from the European Union to continue its full compliance to it.

He called on other signatories to the deal to shield Iran from the US sanctions while also issuing a stern warning to the United Kingdom over the seizure of an Iranian supertanker off the coast of Gibraltar last Thursday.

Rouhani said, "I warn England that you are the initiator of insecurity in seas and you will later understand its repercussions,", adding that the British forces had seized the vessel "unjustly," claiming that the US had, in fact, seized the tanker "by proxy" through its ally.