Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration

Austria's foreign minister said on Feb. 19 that he will travel to Tehran this weekend amid efforts by European countries to keep alive Iran's nuclear agreement with world powers.

The United States will not lift sanctions on Iran in order to negotiate, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted late on Jan. 25, seemingly in response to a Der Spiegel interview with Iran's foreign minister.

"Iranian Foreign Minister says Iran wants to negotiate with The United States, but wants sanctions removed. No Thanks!" Trump tweeted in English on Jan. 25 and later in Farsi. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu, stressed, at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council held in Brussels, the importance of the consistent and swifter implementation of the Mali Peace Agreement.

Iran is now enriching more uranium than Tehran did before it agreed to a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Jan. 16 in a televised speech.

"We are enriching more uranium before the deal was reached ... Pressure has increased on Iran but we continue to progress," Rouhani said.

The U.K., Germany, and France announced on Jan. 14 they would activate the dispute mechanism of the 2015 deal due to Tehran's continuous violations.

The decision of the European participants provokes "deep disappointment and concern," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed on Jan. 15 a proposal for a new "Trump deal" aimed at resolving a nuclear row, saying it was a "strange" offer and criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump for always breaking promises.

Iran withdraws from nuclear deal commitment and pledged to begin enriching uranium for its technical needs.

This comes amid a continuing escalation of tensions between Iran and the US following the death of Iran's supreme military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, in a US air strike in Baghdad.

A rocket attack in northern Iraq killed an American contractor and wounded several military personnel on Dec. 28, the first U.S. casualties from a string of recent strikes, the international coalition against the ISIL group said.    

In an area of northwestern Syria supposed to be free of acts of aggression, on Nov. 17 at least nine civilians were killed and 10 injured in Russian airstrikes, a local civil defense agency said.

A Dutch F-16 jet serving with the US-led coalition in Iraq killed about 70 people - Islamic State (IS) militants and civilians - in an air strike in 2015, the Dutch defence ministry says.