Tehran, Jan. 5, (dpa/GNA) – Iran announced on Monday it had begun enriching uranium up to 20 per cent, far outside the 3.67-per-cent limit set in the 2015 nuclear deal.
The enrichment started “a few hours ago” at the Fordo underground nuclear facility south of the capital Tehran, government spokesperson Ali Rabiei said on Monday afternoon.
According to Rabiei, the process is in line with a new nuclear law recently passed by Iran’s parliament.
The new law allows annual production of 120 kilograms at the 20-per-cent level and it also allows the country’s atomic agency to produce 500 kilograms of less-enriched uranium a month.
The law has proved controversial within Iran, where it has been criticized as politically unwise or technically unrealistic. It is opposed by both President Hassan Rowhani and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
Rabiei said that despite those misgivings, the Iranian government is constitutionally bound to implement a law passed by parliament.
Iran claims its nuclear programme is primarily for civilian power generation, but world powers fear Tehran has ambitions to produce atomic weapons.
The 2015 agreement between Iran and leading world powers – also called JCPOA – required it to limit production to low-enriched uranium, good for only civilian purposes, in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
But after US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the deal, Tehran said it no longer feels bound by the agreement. Since then, it has incrementally violated the limitations set down several times.
Low-enriched uranium is used for nuclear power, whereas highly enriched uranium to the order of 90 per cent can be used to produce atomic weapons.
Rabiei said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been informed of Monday’s development.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif confirmed on Twitter that Iran had resumed 20-per-cent enrichment.
“Our remedial action conforms fully with [paragraph] 36 of JCPOA, after years of non-compliance by several other JCPOA participants,” Zarif wrote in a tweet.
“Our measures are fully reversible upon FULL compliance by ALL,” Zarif added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first world leaders to respond to the announcement, reiterating that “Israel will not allow Iran to produce nuclear weapons.”
“Iran’s decision to continue violating its commitments, to increase the level of enrichment and advance industrial capacity for enriching uranium underground can be explained in no other way than the further realization of its intention to develop a military nuclear program,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
In Brussels, European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano said the move would have “serious, nuclear non-proliferation implications” if confirmed.
But he added, “Let me recall also the importance of avoiding any steps that could undermine the preservation of the nuclear deal.”
“Iran enriching uranium to 20 percent at Fordo is a clear attempt to increase its campaign of nuclear extortion, an attempt that will continue to fail,” a US State Department spokesperson said. “The United States and the international community will continue to look to IAEA inspectors to report the facts on the ground.”
There are various aspects to the new nuclear law.
Perhaps the most politically sensitive part is Iran’s withdrawal from the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, which allows for unannounced inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites by UN inspectors.
The move could not just lead to serious differences between Iran, the IAEA, and European powers still in support of the 2015 deal, but also complicate any negotiations between Tehran and the new US administration of president-elect Joe Biden.
Iran hopes that Biden, who is due to take office on January 20, will return to the nuclear deal and lift the sanctions imposed on Tehran by Trump.
GNA