"The E3, the European three, are on the verge of instituting snapback sanction provisions against (Iran) by October of this year," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
Britain, France and Germany - as signatories to a mostly lapsed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran - have until October to trigger United Nations sanctions on Tehran if they deem it non-compliant.
"If you asked Iran, they say, we're not interested in a nuclear weapon. We're just interested in enrichment," Rubio continued, justifying the US stance in ongoing talks against any Iranian uranium enrichment.
"The problem is that if you can enrich at any level, 3.67 or whatever, you're 80% of the way there. All that's required now is a few months or weeks of time to get to the weapons grade. It makes them a threshold of nuclear power."
