Iran said on Tuesday it had begun enriching uranium to 60 percent purity in its subsoil at Fordo, a technical step from 90 percent, and said the move was met with foreign criticism.
The enrichment was carried out at the facility’s complex IR-6 centrifuges and was a reaction to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s solution last week criticizing Tehran’s lack of cooperation with the nuclear watchdog, according to Iranian state media cited by Reuters.
“In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran informed the firm that it had enriched uranium to 60% purity at the Fordo site,” the semi-official ISNA news firm said.
Iran’s Student News Network reported that Tehran would build new sets of centrifuges at the Natanz and Fordo nuclear sites.
Under the terms of the 2015 deal with world powers, Iran is only allowed to enrich uranium to a purity of 3. 67%. That deal granted sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program to spare it the production of a weapon.
The agreement also provided Fordo with a testing and progression facility and limited centrifuges, used to rotate enriched uranium to higher purity levels, to non-nuclear uses.
In September, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said enrichment capacity had tripled at Fordo over the past year, months after Iran announced it had begun enriching uranium to a purity of 20 at the plant.
On Sunday, the army’s intelligence leader, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, said Iran had made “significant progress” toward generating 90% enriched uranium.
“The time is coming when the big check from the foreign network will come to light, when Iran will contemplate [the concept of] 90% enrichment, albeit symbolically,” he said.
The IAEA reported in July that Iran had 43 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity elsewhere, enough fissile for a nuclear weapon if Iran decided to try.
However, Iran would still want to design a bomb and delivery formula for it, a task that will take several months.
Iran said the latest enrichment update was a retaliatory measure against the IAEA for the solution presented by the United States, Britain, France and Germany to the UN nuclear oversight board last week, and censured Iran for its lack of cooperation with the agency.
On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said “a reaction occurred in the presence of IAEA inspectors at the Natanz and Fordo enrichment complexes,” without specifying what the measures entailed.
He also alluded to the likelihood that the next IAEA delegation to Iran will be cancelled.
Kanani added that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is in a position to respond adequately to the moves of Western parties when they return to their commitments. “
The solution came amid a standoff over undeclared uranium waste in Iran, and as talks to revive the nuclear deal stalled, along with foreign condemnation of Tehran’s reaction to domestic protests.
The deal collapsed after then-President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from Washington in 2018.
Israel has long opposed the nuclear deal, saying it is overdue, halting Iran’s nuclear progress and arguing that sanctions relief had strengthened Tehran’s militias across the region, and the long-awaited new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, strongly opposed the deal.
Emanuel Fabián contributed to this report.
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