Iran's top diplomat presses efforts to save nuclear deal

Iran’s foreign minister is pressing ahead with intense diplomatic efforts to salvage Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers at the centre of a crisis unfolding between Iran and the US.

Mohammad Javad Zarif chastised the international community, saying that so far, it has “mainly made statements, instead of saving the deal,” according to the official IRNA news agency. He spoke in China on Friday after visiting Japan.

Iran has warned it would resume enriching uranium at higher levels if a new nuclear deal isn’t reached by July 7.

The Trump administration pulled America out of the deal last year and imposed escalating sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Other signatories to the deal the European Union, France, Britain, China and Russia have been trying to salvage it.

Concerns about a possible conflict flared after the US dispatched warships and bombers to the region to counter an unspecified threat allegedly from Iran.

Saudi Arabia has accused Tehran of being behind a drone strike that shut down a key oil pipeline in the kingdom, and a newspaper close to the palace called for Washington to launch “surgical” strikes on Iran, raising the spectre of escalating tensions as the US boosts its military presence in the Persian Gulf.