Iran ‘better be careful’

US President Donald Trump has issued a warning to Iran after the country moved to increase uranium enrichment beyond the purity threshold reached in a landmark nuclear deal Washington pulled out of last year.

Iran made the expected move last week, putting it no longer in compliance with the deal agreed in 2015 with the US under then-President Barack Obama and five other nations. Tehran had warned it would increase enrichment following a 60-day ultimatum the country gave to the European signatories of the deal to ease sanctions on its banking and oil sectors, reported CNN online.

Speaking Sunday, Trump said "Iran better be careful."

"Because you enrich for one reason and I won't tell you what the reason is. But it's no good they better be careful," he said before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey.

Iran announced Sunday that it has begun enriching uranium past 3.67%. The level of enrichment then surpassed 4.5% yesterday, Behrooz Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told Iranian news agency ISNA.

"Iran is doing a lot of bad things," Trump said. "The way they want it they would have automatic rights to have nuclear weapons. Iran will never have a nuclear weapon."

China yesterday said "unilateral bullying" by the United States was the cause behind the escalating Iran nuclear crisis, after Tehran announced it was set to breach its uranium enrichment cap, reported AFP.

"The facts show that unilateral bullying has already become a worsening tumour," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a press briefing in Beijing.

The European Union said yesterday it was "extremely concerned" by Iranian plans to breach the uranium enrichment cap set by the 2015 nuclear deal, calling on Tehran to reverse course.