Iran Is ‘Striking Out,’ McConnell Says After Enrichment Threat

(Bloomberg) -- The top Senate Republican accused Iran of acting out and defended President Donald Trump’s posture toward the Islamic Republic after Tehran announced it will exceed a cap on its inventories of low-grade uranium in 10 days.

“We’re squeezing them very hard with sanctions that the Treasury Department has done an excellent job of pursuing," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday in an interview with Fox News. "That’s why you see them striking out."

Trump earlier this month told ITV he wasn’t looking for a war with Iran, although he added, “There’s always a chance.”

McConnell defended the Trump administration’s actions Monday. “The president’s not trying to start a war. He’s made it clear to everybody that he’s not trying to start a war, but these are measured responses to the Iranians acting out,” McConnell said.

The spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said earlier Monday that the country would step up the pace of enrichment after June 27, potentially breaching for the first time a landmark 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.

Iran has so far not increased enrichment purity beyond a 3.67% cap meant to prevent it from making weapons-grade uranium, despite Trump’s decision last year to abandon the nuclear accord. Kamalvandi raised the possibility that Iran could enrich as much as 20% for domestic uses.

Kamalvandi’s announcement is likely to stoke further friction with the U.S., which has accused Iran of being behind a spate of attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz shipping choke point. Iran has denied any wrongdoing.

Tensions in the Gulf have spiked since the U.S. stopped granting waivers to buyers of Iranian oil in early May, tightening sanctions slapped on the Islamic Republic after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal.

To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kasia Klimasinska at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net, Kathleen Hunter, Elizabeth Wasserman

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