Iran is ramping up its production of 60% enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed on Tuesday that the country had started production at the Fordo underground fuel plant, in addition to its production started at Natanz since April 2021. The IAEA “will inform Iran of its intention to increase the frequency and intensity of its verification activities”.
“The production of 60% enriched uranium at Fordo began on Monday,” the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, was quoted by the Isna news agency as saying earlier. “We said that political pressure does not change anything and that the adoption of a resolution (at the IAEA) will elicit a serious reaction” from Iran, he added.
Britain, France and Germany slammed the expansion of Iran’s nuclear program in a joint statement, “condemning Iran’s latest measures, confirmed by the IAEA, aimed at further expanding its nuclear program”. They point out that by increasing its production capacities, Tehran “has taken significant new steps that empty” the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement “of its content”. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the White House expressed the “deep concern” of the United States over “the progress of the nuclear program” Iranian in particular.
Iran is getting closer to the atomic bomb
The enrichment threshold is more symbolic than anything else. “It is much faster to enrich uranium from 20 to 60% than to enrich it from 1 to 20%, noted to the Parisian, in April 2021, Yves Marignac, nuclear expert. And going from 60% to 90% takes even less time than going from 20% to 60%. » Enriched to around 20%, uranium is used in nuclear medicine and medical imaging; at 90%, you can create an atomic bomb, a goal that the Islamic Republic has always denied pursuing.
This 60% threshold greatly exceeds that of 3.67% set by the 2015 agreement between Tehran and the major powers aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Under this agreement, Iran had agreed to freeze its enrichment activities at Fordo. The site had however been put back into service in 2019 and recently modified with a view to obtaining better efficiency.
The 2015 pact (JCPOA) offered Iran relief from international sanctions in exchange for guarantees that Tehran would not acquire atomic weapons. However, after the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and the reinstatement of US sanctions that are stifling its economy, Tehran has gradually freed itself from its obligations. Iran had thus initiated in January 2021 the process intended to produce 20% enriched uranium in the Fordo plant.