Iran resumes 20% enrichment at Fordow amid rising tensions with U.S.

By Parisa Hafezi

 

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the United Nations complex, the Vienna International Centre, in Vienna, Austria, December 16, 2020. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

 

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has resumed 20% uranium enrichment at an underground nuclear facility, the government said on Monday, breaching a 2015 nuclear pact with major powers and possibly complicating efforts by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal.

 

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Iran's arch foe Israel, said the move was aimed at developing nuclear weapons and Israel would never allow Tehran to build them.

 

The enrichment decision, Iran's latest contravention of the accord, coincides with increasing tensions between Iran and the United States in the last days of President Donald Trump's administration.

 

Tehran started violating the accord in 2019 in a step-by-step response to Trump's withdrawal from it in 2018 and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions lifted under the deal.

 

The agreement's main aim was to extend the time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from roughly two to three months. It also lifted international sanctions against Tehran.

 

Iran has resumed 20% uranium enrichment at an underground nuclear facility, the government said on Monday, breaching a 2015 nuclear pact with major powers and possibly complicating efforts by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the deal. This report produced by Jillian Kitchener.

 

"A few minutes ago, the process of producing 20% enriched uranium has started in Fordow enrichment complex," government spokesman Ali Rabiei told Iranian state media.

 

The U.N. nuclear watchdog confirmed that Iran had started the process of enriching uranium to 20% purity at its Fordow site.

 

"Iran today began feeding uranium already enriched up to 4.1 percent U-235 into six centrifuge cascades at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant for further enrichment up to 20%," the IAEA said in a statement on a report that was sent to member states.

 

The step was one of many mentioned in a law passed by Iran's parliament last month in response to the killing of the country's top nuclear scientist, which Tehran has blamed on Israel.

 

"Our measures are fully reversible upon FULL compliance by ALL (parties to the deal)," tweeted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

 

Tehran insists it can quickly reverse its breaches if U.S. sanctions are removed. Biden, who takes office on Jan. 20, has said the United States will rejoin the deal "if Iran resumes strict compliance" with the pact.

 

The Biden transition team declined to comment on Monday about Iran's enrichment move.

 

NUCLEAR WATCHDOG

Tehran's move could hinder efforts to salvage the nuclear pact as its breaches have increasingly worried some of the deal's other parties, which have urged Iran to act responsibly.

 

However, it could also be accumulating bargaining chips that could be negotiated away in talks with the Biden administration.

 

A U.S. State Department spokesperson accused Iran of "nuclear extortion."

 

In Brussels, a European Union Commission spokesperson said that the "move, if confirmed, would constitute a considerable departure from Iran's commitments".

 

On Jan. 1, the IAEA said Tehran had told the watchdog it planned to resume enrichment up to 20% at the Fordow site, which is buried inside a mountain.

 

"The process of gas injection to centrifuges has started a few hours ago and the first product of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas will be available in a few hours," Rabiei said.

 

Iran had earlier breached the deal's 3.67% limit on the purity to which it can enrich uranium, but it had only gone up to 4.5% so far, well short of the 20% level and of the 90% that is weapons-grade.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe Iran had a secret, coordinated nuclear weapons programme that it halted in 2003. Iran denies ever having had one.

 

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Iran's enrichment decision could be explained only as a bid to "continue to carry out its intention to develop a military nuclear programme".

 

"Israel will not allow Iran to produce nuclear weapons," he added.

 

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Michael Shields and Francois Murphy in Vienna and Marine Strauss in Brussels; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by William Maclean and Sonya Hepinstall)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-05

 

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My foreign policy advice would be to persuade the Chinese to attack it ???? 

There are few countries in the world that will do what ever they can to prevent this Ayatollah regime country from achieving nuke capabilities, 'Nuff said...

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

There are few countries in the world that will do what ever they can to prevent this Ayatollah regime country from achieving nuke capabilities, 'Nuff said...

China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, (Obama admin) United States and Germany had prevented Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities, until Trump came along and reneged on a deal that was working.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action

 

Iran is quite willing to return to the agreement, provided the Biden administration will do the same, which he says he will.
Unless of course the wrecking ball Trump starts a war in the next two weeks.

1) Why any country should want enriched ( higher % of atom bomb U-235) for than making a bomb ?

2) 10 years after the start of the treaty, Iran was allowed to do anything they want = 2025.

The bow ( = rockets to deliver MIRV's into Europe) they already have, only the "arrow"= the bomb they still need. 2026 the next nuclear power on this world, as trustworthy als the last: North Korea. The only point I agree with Trump.

"Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Iran's arch foe Israel, said the move was aimed at developing nuclear weapons"

Disagree, I think the move is aimed and improving their negotiation position.

17 hours ago, webfact said:

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Iran's arch foe Israel, said the move was aimed at developing nuclear weapons and Israel would never allow Tehran to build them.

 

That is more than 20% rich ???? considering how Israel came to acquire nuclear weapons

And I ask myself were would we be today if donald dident welch on a treaty the other side was abiding by?another blunder by the trump administration imo

Iran needs to get Nuked.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

1 hour ago, sharksy said:

Iran needs to get Nuked.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Doesn't bode well for the most aggressive country for decades, the USA.

2 hours ago, stevenl said:

Doesn't bode well for the most aggressive country for decades, the USA.

It's Iran who is being aggressive.  They've just hijacked another ship, this time South Korean.  Iran just seems to be the main anagonist in the region.  Time they got a kicking