VIENNA — The on-again, off-again effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran has produced a grim new status quo: a country that is now the only non-nuclear-weapon state on earth enriching uranium to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed in July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany), was designed to prevent exactly this scenario. It capped Iran’s uranium enrichment at 3.67% and limited its enriched stockpile to 300 kilograms.
In exchange, international sanctions were lifted. That bargain collapsed when the U.S. withdrew in May 2018 under President Trump, reimposing sanctions.
Iran responded by breaking the deal’s core limits, pushing enrichment to 60% by 2021.
Where things stand now
The IAEA reports that Iran now holds 60 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity. In plain terms, that is enough material that, if further enriched, could be turned into several nuclear weapons. There is no civilian energy use for uranium at that level.
Negotiations to revive the JCPOA began in Vienna in April 2021 but stalled by September 2022. A brief ceasefire in the Persian Gulf, brokered by Oman and Qatar in early 2024, reduced tit-for-tat attacks on tankers.
But that was a maritime truce, not a nuclear solution. Talks resumed in Geneva in November 2024, only to break down in January 2025 over two stubborn issues: verification of Iran’s activities and the status of its missile development program.
The pressure campaign
The Trump administration’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy has not let up. The U.S. has imposed over 1,500 sanctions on Iran since 2018, and the stated goal is to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. That is a heavy economic hammer, but it has not brought Iran back to the negotiating table on American terms.
Iran, for its part, has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if sanctions continue. That would remove the last formal international constraint on its nuclear activities.
What to watch next
The practical question is whether the current standoff can hold. Iran has the material. It has the technical know-how.
What it lacks, for now, is the political decision to sprint for a weapon. But with talks frozen and sanctions piling up, the margin for diplomacy is shrinking.
The IAEA continues to monitor, but its inspectors can only report what they see — they cannot force compliance. For ordinary readers, here’s what it means: the nuclear deal that once bought time is effectively dead, and no replacement has emerged. The U.S. and Iran are locked in a cycle of pressure and provocation, with the world watching to see who blinks first.
