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Iran announced on Monday that it has resumed uranium enrichment by 20% at the Fordo underground nuclear complex, and the European Union quickly condemned this step and viewed it as a deviation from the nuclear deal, while Israel said this shows intent Tehran to produce a nuclear weapon.
“A few minutes ago, the 20% enriched uranium production process started at the Fordo enrichment complex,” Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabie said in a statement to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
“The gas injection process in the centrifuges started a few hours ago and the first uranium hexafluoride gas product will be available in a few hours,” he said.
He pointed out that the process began after several measures were taken, such as informing the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations.
Increasing the level of uranium enrichment is one of several steps included in a law passed by Iran’s parliament last month in response to the assassination of the country’s largest nuclear scientist, for which Tehran held Israel responsible.
Such Iranian measures are believed to be able to hamper attempts by the administration of President-elect Joe Biden to rejoin the nuclear deal, after the Donald Trump administration withdrew from it.
The main goal of the agreement is to extend the time Iran needs to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it so wishes, to at least one year instead of two or three months, and the agreement provides for the lifting of international sanctions to Tehran.
International inspectors are watching
For its part, the International Atomic Energy Agency said, after Tehran’s announcement, that the agency’s director is scheduled to brief members today, Monday, on developments in Iran.
A spokesperson for the agency said its inspectors “are monitoring activities at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant in Iran and, based on their information, the director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, is expected to present a report to member states of the agency later today. “
The agency said on January 1 that Tehran had informed it that it had decided to resume enrichment of up to 20% at the Fordo site, which is located in the belly of a mountain.
And Iran had previously exceeded the maximum uranium purity level stipulated in the agreement, which is 3.67%, and reached 4.5% in a series of measures to respond to Trump’s maximum pressure policy against Tehran, but it was far from 20% or 90%. Necessary to build nuclear weapons.
US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency believe that Iran had a secret and coordinated nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003, but Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program at all.
On the other hand, the European Union commented on today’s announcement by Iran to raise the level of uranium enrichment, saying that this constitutes a major violation of the nuclear deal.
As for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he issued a statement saying that this decision could only be interpreted as an attempt by Iran “to continue implementing its intention to develop a nuclear weapons program.”
“Israel will never allow Iran to produce nuclear weapons,” he added.
These developments come in light of the tension in the Gulf and the mutual warnings and accusations between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran and its allies, on the other hand, in the final days of the Trump administration.
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