Iran told the United Nations nuclear agency that it plans to enrich uranium to 20% purity, a level it reached before the 2015 agreement, at its Fordow unit buried within a mountain, the agency said.
The move is the latest in several recent Iranian announcements to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to further violate the agreement, which it began violating in 2019 in retaliation for Washington’s withdrawal from the agreement and the reinstatement of U.S. sanctions against Tehran. .
This measure was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran’s parliament last month in response to the death of the country’s top nuclear scientist, which Tehran attributed to Israel. Such moves by Iran could complicate efforts by US President-elect Joe Biden to return to the deal.
“It is an additional blow,” a Vienna-based diplomat told AFP.
“Iran has informed the agency that, in order to comply with a legal act recently approved by the country’s parliament, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran intends to produce uranium that is less enriched by up to 20 percent at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the IAEA said in an announcement.
An IAEA report to member states obtained on Friday by Reuters used similar text when describing a letter from Iran to the IAEA dated December 31.
“Iran’s letter to the agency … did not say when this enrichment activity would take place,” said the IAEA statement.
Fordow was built inside a mountain, apparently to protect it from aerial bombardments, and the 2015 deal does not allow enrichment there. Iran is already enriching Fordow with first-generation IR-1 centrifuges.
Iran violated the 3.67% limit on the purity agreement with which it can enrich uranium, but it has only risen to 4.5% so far, well below the 20% it reached before the agreement and the 90% for weapons. .
The main objective of the agreement was to extend the time that Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it so desired, for at least one year, from about two to three months. It also suspended international sanctions against Tehran.
US intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe that Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons program, which was suspended in 2003. Iran denies having one.
Biden, who will take office on January 20, signaled that Washington would re-join the so-called Global Joint Action Plan, which aims to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
The deal has been broken since President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from it in May 2018 and imposed paralyzing economic sanctions on Tehran.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the change of government in the US means that there is “one last window” for progress that “should not be missed”.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse