Iran signals nuclear escalation as negotiations handed to Ebrahim Raisi

Iranian leaders conceded they won’t secure the revival of a nuclear agreement with world powers during their last few weeks in office, and signaled that they’re leaving behind an atomic program poised on the threshold of what’s required for a weapon.
 

President-elect Ebrahim Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric, will have to conclude talks aimed at reviving the 2015 agreement that lifted US sanctions in exchange for nuclear caps, the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani, said Wednesday at one of his final cabinet meetings. Hours later, his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, tweeted a chart indicating that Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium has