Enlarge image
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the joint press conference with Mohammed Eslami in Tehran
Photo: Vahid Salemi/AP
The find alarmed the West and Israel – and called the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into action: during a visit to the Fordow nuclear plant, inspectors from the organization found traces of uranium with a purity of almost 84 percent.
A degree of purity of around 90 percent is required for nuclear weapons.
Now the IAEA wants to clarify whether the high degree of enrichment was brought about intentionally by the Iranians - or whether it is perhaps an unintentional outlier, as Iranian representatives argue.
Israel and the USA in particular have recently expressed their concern that Iran could use the uranium to develop and build nuclear weapons.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has therefore traveled to Tehran.
At the beginning of the talks, there was extensive praise for the other side: Grossi spoke on Saturday in the Iranian capital of "an atmosphere of work, honesty and cooperation".
The dialogue continues, he said during a joint press conference with Iran's nuclear chief Mohammed Eslami.
Where does the highly enriched uranium come from?
Iran's nuclear chief said a plan had been drawn up with the IAEA to clarify the open issues.
"We hope that Grossi's visit will lead to professional cooperation in the future," said Eslami.
According to him, Iran does not enrich uranium above 60 percent purity.
Eslami announced an international nuclear conference in Tehran.
According to Western diplomats, Grossi is also negotiating in Tehran, among other things, an expansion of the IAEA inspections in nuclear plants, after Iran had recently increased the enrichment of uranium more and more.
According to information from Tehran, in addition to the inspections, the negotiations are also about a dispute over the previously unexplained origin of traces of radioactive material at three locations in Iran.
Iran's political leadership is demanding that differences be settled.
Grossi had previously said Iran might have enough uranium for several nuclear weapons if current stocks were further enriched.
However, it was "a long and politically difficult road to the development of a nuclear weapon," Grossi said in the EU Parliament in January.
CIA still left
The US foreign intelligence service currently has no indication that Iran has decided to resume its military nuclear program, CIA chief William Burns said in late February.
Should Tehran go down this route, it would take at least a year to complete a nuclear weapon, a senior European diplomat said this week.
In any case, the IAEA is convinced that it will be able to discover weapons-grade uranium within a short time, despite the fact that inspections have only been possible to a limited extent so far, thus giving the international community time to take any countermeasures.
beb/dpa
