The conflict over the international nuclear deal with Iran is further intensifying. With the country claiming to have increased its production of enriched uranium, Tehran has now announced another move to abandon the international deal.
His country will resume uranium enrichment in the plant Fordo, 180 kilometers south of the capital Tehran, said head of state Hassan Rohani in the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB. Iran will inject uranium gas into previously inactive 1044 centrifuges in the nuclear facility, the president said.
Following the agreement concluded in 2015, the number of centrifuges in the subterranean uranium enrichment plants of Fordo and Natans had been reduced by more than two thirds to 5060. According to the agreement, the Fordo facility should only be used for scientific projects; The centrifuges there were only allowed to be tested without gas injection.
Iran also said in 2015 that it would limit the development of new, more efficient centrifuges to prevent a rapid increase in its enrichment capacity. According to the agreement, Iran would not have been allowed to expand uranium enrichment until 2025.
Iran apparently accelerates uranium enrichment
Already on Monday it was announced that Iran apparently accelerated its uranium enrichment. According to nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, the country is now working with new centrifuges, which make the process much faster.
Uranium enrichment is dangerous. With the right know-how and modern centrifuges, uranium can be enriched up to 90 percent in the medium or long term, which would then also make it possible to build a nuclear bomb.
After the laboriously negotiated international nuclear agreement of 2015, the Islamic Republic can only use the older generation of centrifuges (IR-1), only enrich uranium to 3.67 percent and have no more than 300 kilograms of uranium. The uranium enrichment limited to 3.67 percent was one of the key points of the Vienna Treaty to prevent the construction of Iranian nuclear weapons.
The United States withdrew unilaterally from the 2015 Vienna Agreement in May 2018. Since then, Iran violated provisions of the agreement in three steps. With the uranium enrichment in Fordo now begins the fourth phase of the partial exit from the agreement. Thus, the nuclear deal is in acute danger.
