Iran has announced that it has begun enriching nuclear fuel uranium to 60 percent.
Iran, which had agreed to not enrich uranium more than 3.67 percent in the nuclear agreement with the superpowers, has now violated the condition and announced that it has started enriching up to 60 percent.
Iran is said to be taking this step to pressurize the United States to lift the sanctions on it as agreed in the nuclear deal, as it could eventually produce a nuclear weapon if the uranium is enriched to 90 percent.
Iran’s state-owned IRNA news agency said that the capital is about 100 km from Tehran. Farther away, work has begun on enriching uranium fuel to 60 percent at their underground Fordow nuclear power plant.
In a statement released by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.N. It has been reported that this action was taken in response to a recent resolution passed by the IAEA, the nuclear watchdog.
However, the ministry did not give any explanation about this.
The United States and other major powers have imposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. Due to this, Iran is experiencing economic recession.
In this situation, Iran and UN. In 2014, a historic nuclear agreement was signed between the permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. Under it, the major powers agreed to lift economic sanctions on Iran. Instead, Iran agreed to a number of conditions, including not enriching uranium above 3.67 percent, to ensure it would not build a nuclear weapon.
However, Donald Trump, who succeeded him, announced that he would withdraw from the agreement made when Obama was the US president. He reimposed sanctions on Iran that had been eased as a result of the deal.
In response, Iran has been gradually violating the terms of the nuclear deal. As part of that, Iran has been enriching uranium at an additional percentage above the rate agreed in the deal, keeping it in excess of the condition limit.
In this situation, the UN’s IAEA body alleged last month that Iran has a stockpile of 62.3 kg of uranium enriched to more than 60 percent. This is 6.7 kg more than what was already there, the organization said.
Subsequently, the IAEA passed a resolution condemning Iran’s non-cooperation in implementing the nuclear deal.
In a resolution passed by the 35-member body, Iran was accused of not providing technically credible answers to its questions.