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Tuesday, November 05, 2019, 21:22
Iran to fuel centrifuges in new step away from nuclear deal
By Agencies
Tuesday, November 05, 2019, 21:22 By Agencies

A handout picture provided by the Iranian Presidency on Oct 14, 2019 shows President Hassan Rouhani speaking during a press conference in the Iranian capital Tehran. (PHOTO / AFP)

TEHRAN – Iran will start injecting uranium gas into over a thousand centrifuges at a fortified nuclear facility built inside a mountain, the country's president announced Tuesday in Tehran's latest step away from its atomic accord with world powers since US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal over a year ago.

Rouhani's announcement means that Iran's Fordo nuclear facility, publicly revealed only 10 years ago, again will become an active atomic site rather than a research facility as envisioned by the landmark 2015 accord

President Hassan Rouhani's announcement means that Iran's Fordo nuclear facility, publicly revealed only 10 years ago, again will become an active atomic site rather than a research facility as envisioned by the landmark 2015 accord. The State Department days ago announced it would renew a waiver allowing Russia's state-run Rosatom nuclear company to continue its conversion work at the site.

The announcement represents a significant development as Fordo's 1,044 centrifuges previously spun empty under the deal. It also increases pressure on European nations that remain in the accord to offer Iran a way to sell its crude oil abroad. Rouhani threatened in early January to further pull Iran out of the deal, which could mean curtailing international surveillance of its program or pushing enrichment close to weapons-grade levels.

"We are aware of their sensitiveness toward the Fordo facility and those centrifuges," Rouhani said in a live televised address. "At the same time, we cannot tolerate unilateral fulfillment of our commitments and no commitment from their side"

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog now monitoring Iran's compliance with the deal, declined to comment on Iran's announcement. The European Union on Monday called on Iran to return to the deal, while the White House sanctioned members of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's inner circle as part of its maximalist campaign against Tehran.

ALSO READ: China urges US to stop wrong moves on Iran nuclear issue

Fordo sits some 25 kilometers northeast of Qom, a Shi'ite holy city and the site of a former ammunition dump. Shielded by the Alborz Mountains, the facility also is ringed by anti-aircraft guns and other fortifications. It is about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges.

Iran acknowledged Fordo's existence in 2009 amid a major pressure campaign by Western powers over Tehran's nuclear program. The West feared Iran could use its program to build a nuclear weapon; Iran insists the program is for peaceful purposes.

However, Rouhani stressed the steps taken so far, including going beyond the deal's enrichment and stockpile limitations, could be reversed if Europe offers a way for it to avoid US sanctions choking off its crude oil sales abroad

The centrifuges at Fordo are IR-1s, Iran's first-generation centrifuge. The nuclear deal allowed those at Fordo to spin without uranium gas, while allowing up to 5,060 IR-1s at its Natanz facility to enrich uranium.

Rouhani said Tuesday that the centrifuges at Fordo would be injected with gas on Wednesday. He did not say did not say whether the centrifuges would produce enriched uranium.

However, Rouhani stressed the steps taken so far, including going beyond the deal's enrichment and stockpile limitations, could be reversed if Europe offers a way for it to avoid US sanctions choking off its crude oil sales abroad.

"We should be able to sell our oil," Rouhani said. "We should be able to bring our money" into the country.

The 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, called for Fordo to become "a nuclear, physics and technology center." Rosatom did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its work there.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the joint Russian-Iranian project at Fordo would not be affected by Tehran's latest move.

"We intend to continue to implement it," Ryabkov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

A handout picture released by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization on Nov 4, 2019, shows the head of the organization Ali Akbar Salehi speaking at a press conference following a visit at the nuclear power plant of Natanz, some 300 kilometres south of capital Tehran. (ATOMIC ENERGY ORGANIZATION OF IRAN / AFP)

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Moscow wants the nuclear deal to survive though it understood Iran's anger over the "unprecedented and illegitimate sanctions against" it.

Rouhani's announcement came after Ali Akhbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Monday that Tehran had doubled the number of advanced IR-6 centrifuges operating in the country to 60.

According to Salehi, Iran's uranium enrichment capacity has reached 8,660 separative work units (SWUs). SWU is the standard measure of the effort required to separate isotopes of uranium during an enrichment process. One SWU is equivalent to one kg of separative work.

A centrifuge enriches uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas. An IR-6 centrifuge can produce enriched uranium 10 times faster than an IR-1, Iranian officials say.

Iranian scientists also are working on a prototype called the IR-9, which works 50-times faster than the IR-1, Salehi said.

Since May, Iran has been breaking away with the restrictions, set by the nuclear accord, on the stockpile of its low-grade enriched uranium and its concentration, in a response to the US exit from the international deal last year

As of now, Iran is enriching uranium up to 4.5%, in violation of the accord's limit of 3.67%. Enriched uranium at the 3.67% level is enough for peaceful pursuits but is far below weapons-grade levels of 90%. At the 4.5% level, it is enough to help power Iran's Bushehr reactor, the country's only nuclear power plant. Prior to the atomic deal, Iran only reached up to 20%.

Tehran has gone from producing some 450 grams of low-enriched uranium a day to 5 kilograms, Salehi said. Iran now holds over 500 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, Salehi said. The deal had limited Iran to 300 kilograms.

READ MORE: Iran says to harden nuke stance if interests undermined

The collapse of the nuclear deal coincided with a tense summer of mysterious attacks on oil tankers and Saudi oil facilities that the US blamed on Iran. Tehran denied the allegation, though it did seize oil tankers and shoot down a U.S. military surveillance drone.

Following the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Iran had given chances to Europeans to protect its interests under the nuclear deal, said the government spokesman Ali Rabiee. However, the bullying policies of the United States and Europeans' "lack of resistance" to the US moves resulted in Iran's decision to reduce its nuclear commitments, Rabiee added.

Since May, Iran has made three moves to build stockpiles of nuclear fuel and enrich low-grade uranium to a higher level of purity, and has started up advanced centrifuges to boost the country's stockpile of enriched uranium, which had been restricted by the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Iran's moves were reaction to the US unilateral withdrawal from the deal last year and the re-imposition of sanctions against the Islamic republic.


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