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Iran has exceeded the limit on the amount of enriched uranium in its stockpile set out in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the United Nations’ atomic watchdog has confirmed.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said yesterday that its inspectors had verified the 300kg cap had been breached.

“We can confirm that IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has informed the Board of Governors that the Agency verified on 1 July that Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile exceeded [the deal’s limit],” an IAEA spokesman said in a statement.

The announcement came after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the semi-official ISNA news agency earlier on Monday that Iran had “crossed the 300-kilogramme limit”.

The move marks Iran’s first major departure from the unravelling agreement a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord and reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran.

Since then, Washington and Tehran have been embroiled in an escalating war of words, with fears of a possible US-Iran conflict heightened by the downing of a US drone last month by  Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), after which US President Donald Trump called off retaliatory attacks at the last minute. —Al Jazeera.