Iran said on Monday that it had started using a new set of advanced centrifuges, its latest move to build up its nuclear program, bringing the country a step closer to being able to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb.
The move is the latest made by Iran since April to exceed the limitations of the 2015 nuclear agreement, in retaliation for President Trump’s withdrawing from that deal and imposing new economic sanctions.
The Iranian government reiterated that it was prepared to reverse the buildup if the European powers that signed the agreement found a way to ease the impact of United States sanctions. Tehran has pursued a calibrated campaign of steps beyond the boundaries of the 2015 deal, steadily ratcheting up pressure on the Europeans.
If the European commitments “are fully implemented, we will come close to what we had in the nuclear deal, too,” Ali Rabiei, a government spokesman, said at a news conference in Tehran, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
“Our final goal is full implementation of the nuclear deal,” he said, adding that Iran’s moves “are aimed at bringing the other side back to compliance.”
The 2015 agreement limited Iran, for 10 years, to using about 5,000 older centrifuges at its main nuclear development facility.
In April, it announced plans to use newer, more efficient centrifuges that had not been allowed under the agreement, and this summer it began to install and activate them.
On Monday, Ali Akbar Salehi, the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told state news media that 30 of the more advanced centrifuges had been put into use, bringing the total to 60. He said that Iran was also making plans to install more advanced centrifuges in the future.
The announcement came as Iran celebrated the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran, when 52 Americans were taken hostage. The ordeal, which lasted 444 days, continues to color relations between the United States and Iran.
The centrifuges are used to separate the rare, highly radioactive isotope, uranium 235, from the less radioactive type, uranium 238. Increasing the proportion of uranium 235 is known as enrichment.
Under the nuclear deal, Iran gave up the majority of its enriched uranium stockpile, agreeing to keep no more than 660 pounds for 15 years. It also agreed to limit its enrichment to less than 4 percent uranium 235.
In recent months, Iran has gone beyond both the total amount and the level of enrichment that were allowed under the agreement.
Its supplies are still far short of the level of enrichment needed to make a nuclear bomb, however.
Source » nytimes