IAEA: Iran Injects Gas Into Advanced Centrifuges

Date: 18 November 2020 - 21:50

News ID: ۸۵۰۰۴

VIENNA (Dispatches) -- Iran has fired up advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges that it had installed underground at its Natanz site, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a report by the UN atomic agency.
Natanz is Iran’s main uranium-enrichment site and the one that U.S. President Donald Trump allegedly asked for options on attacking recently but was talked out of it by other American officials, according to a source who confirmed a New York Times report.
An International Atomic Energy Agency report last week showed Tehran had installed a cascade, an interlinked cluster, of advanced IR-2m machines underground at Natanz, having moved them from an above-ground plant where it was already enriching uranium with advanced centrifuges.
Last week’s report said it had not fed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas, the feedstock for centrifuges, into that cascade.
"On Nov 14 2020, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding UF6 into the recently installed cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz,” the IAEA report to member states dated on Tuesday said.
Iran has let go of many restrictions imposed by the 2015 deal on its nuclear energy activities, including on the purity to which it enriches uranium and its stock of enriched uranium. These measures came in response to Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 and the reimposition of U.S. sanctions against Tehran that had been lifted under the accord.
Last week’s IAEA report said Iran had also begun installing a cascade of IR-4 centrifuges at the underground plant but not a planned third cascade of IR-6 machines. It is also operating 5,060 IR-1 machines at the underground plant.
Iran has said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report proves the country’s continued cooperation with the UN’s nuclear agency and the suspension of commitments under the 2015 deal.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations, told reporters on Wednesday that the new report shows the IAEA’s continued verification of the country’s nuclear program.
According to the report, he said, in addition to heavy water production and storage, Iran has exported more than 2.2 tons of its heavy water and also utilized 1.3 tons in line with its research and development activities.
He said the report states that Iran

has continued its uranium enrichment activities in Natanz and Fordow sites, using new machines, and enriching uranium up to 4.5% purity, which is beyond the 3.67% limit set in the nuclear agreement, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
In addition, he added, the report mentions Iran’s recent decision to relocate its R&D centrifuges underground in Natanz and states that the country has declared it will consider safeguard requirements.
According to Gharibabadi, "the IAEA report has announced the amount of Iran’s uranium reserves is about 2,442.9 kg as of November 2, which is equal to about 3,600 kg of low-enriched uranium.”
Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht-Ravanchi told a meeting of the UN General Assembly that Tehran believes the IAEA must fulfill its verification duty in a way that it does not overshadow the member states’ inalienable right to reinforce their peaceful use of nuclear energy.
He said over the past year, 22 percent of all the IAEA’s inspections have been carried out in Iran, and the agency’s activities have not stopped in the Islamic Republic even at the peak of the coronavirus outbreak.
Iran signed the JCPOA with six world states — namely the U.S., Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China — in 2015.
However, Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in May 2018 and subsequent re-imposition of sanctions against Tehran left the future of the historic agreement in limbo.
Iran remained fully compliant with the JCPOA for an entire year, waiting for the co-signatories to fulfill their end of the bargain by offsetting the impacts of American bans on the Iranian economy.
But as the European parties failed to do so, the Islamic Republic moved in May 2019 to suspend its JCPOA commitments under Articles 26 and 36 of the deal covering Tehran’s legal rights.
Iran took five steps in scaling back its obligations, among them abandoning operational limitations on its nuclear industry, including with regard to the capacity and level of uranium enrichment.
All those measures were adopted after informing the IAEA beforehand, with the agency’s inspectors present on the ground in Iran.