France urged Iran on Saturday to halt sensitive activities to allow talks on its nuclear programme to resume, as the latest report by the UN atomic watchdog gave fresh impetus for new sanctions.

“It is indispensable that Iran complies with all the demands of the international community and re-establish confidence that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful in nature, which the (UN nuclear) agency is not in a position today to certify,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

In the statement, the French Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the latest report “brings new elements to answer questions from the IAEA,” but it added that “important uncertainties remain, in particular on activities that could have a military nuclear dimension.” A number of Western countries suspect Iran of at least working for a civilian/military duality in its nuclear program and of enriching uranium that could be used later to make a nuclear weapon.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that it was still not in a position to offer a verdict on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

In a confidential new report, the UN agency complained that Tehran was continuing to defy UN demands to halt uranium enrichment and had started developing faster and more efficient centrifuges to produce enriched uranium, which can be used to make the fissile material for a bomb.

In order to re-establish the trust of the international community, France said it is necessary for Iran to “suspend enrichment as demanded by the IAEA’s Board of Governors and the (UN) Security Council.”

“Our preference is to move to dialogue and negotiations to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem. We call once again on Iran to comply with its international obligations and finally allow, by suspending its sensitive activities, the opening of negotiations that we have called for,” said the French statement.