TEHRAN — France's foreign minister told his newly-appointed Iranian counterpart in a telephone call that it was urgent for Tehran to return to nuclear negotiations immediately, the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The minister underlined the importance and the urgency of an immediate resumption of negotiations, interrupted by Iran since June," the Foreign Ministry said after the conversation between Jean-Yves Le Drian and Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Reuters reported.

Le Drian expressed his concern with regard to all the nuclear activities carried out by Iran in violation of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. 

Iran started to gradually remove limits on its nuclear program since Washington abandoned the nuclear agreement in 2018 and imposed sanctions against the country. The U.S. did it in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the agreement.

Iran started to remove cap on its nuclear program one year after Donald Trump quit the deal and the European parties to the deal, including France, did nothing to compensate Iran for the sanctions.

SA/PA