The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, expressed concern that Iran may be continuing to secretly work on a nuclear weapon. According to Amano, "we do not know for sure, but we have information indicating that Iran was engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices in the past and now."

The United States blacklisted a Greek businessman, Dimitri Cambis, and fourteen of his companies, charging that they conspired with Iran to evade oil sanctions by acquiring petroleum tankers on Iran's behalf. Participants in the scheme included the National Iranian Oil Company and the National Iranian Tanker Company, both of which already have been sanctioned by the United States.

Swiss-based commodities trading house Trafigura confirmed that it bartered alumina with the Iranian Aluminum Company, Iralco, folllwing an agreement reached in October 2011. Trafigura says that no deliveries have been made to Iralco since it was sanctioned by the European Union in December 2012. E.U. sanctions were imposed on Iralco because of links to Iran's nuclear program.

International negotiators softened Western positions on Iran's nuclear program in a February round of talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The P5+1 negotiating partners proposed that Iran could keep enough 20 percent enriched uranium to fuel a research reactor - a step back from an earlier proposal that Iran's entire stock of 20% uranium be shipped out of the country. The P5+1 also proposed that enrichment activities at the fortified underground Fordow facility be suspended; an earlier proposal had called for Fordow to be shut down. In return, sanctions on gold, precious metals and petrochemicals would be eased.