Tehran ready to dash for nuclear bomb, claims US
The United States accused Iran of readying for a sprint towards a nuclear weapon after its government reactivated an underground enrichment facility mothballed under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Witnessed by international inspectors, Iran began injecting uranium gas into spinning centrifuges in the Fordow facility this week, suspending its commitment under that agreement not to undertake atomic activity at the plant. Fordow should now be producing uranium enriched to 4.5 per cent purity, enough to power electricity generation but far below 90 per cent purity weapons grade fuel.
It is the fifth time that Iran has dropped a commitment under the 2015 deal since President Donald Trump pulled out of it last year and by far the most significant step away. Iran has vowed to scale back on one commitment every two months until steps are taken to restore the sanctions relief the deal bestowed before Trump withdrew.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, condemned the move as he landed in Germany for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. ‘‘Iran’s expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout. It is now time for all nations to reject this regime’s nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure.’’
The Iranian ambassador to London, Hamid Baeidinejad, insisted that reactivating the Fordow plant was intended to pressure European powers to uphold their part of the deal by facilitating Iran’s export of oil despite US sanctions. Britain, France and Germany remained signatories to the 2015 deal after Trump pulled out but have struggled to trade with Iran since the US reimposed old sanctions and added new ones. Regular sanctions forbid American companies
from doing business with Iran and ban transactions using US dollars. But secondary, or extraterritorial sanctions, also snarl up foreign companies, which have fled Iran in droves. There are signs, however, that the Europeans are wearying of what they see as Iranian provocations and may be moving towards an official resolution procedure over its latest atomic activities.
Baeidinejad, a career diplomat who helped to negotiate the 2015 deal, said the US posture and Europe’s failure to mitigate it were emboldening hardliners. He warned that questions were growing over why Iran should remain a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the accord that governs signatories’ use of nuclear technology.
‘‘These ideas are floating around the country . . . and unfortunately there are more people listening to these kind of arguments, which we don’t see as positive,’’ he said. ‘‘[President] Rouhani is trying his best to convince the people that we don’t see that it’s in Iran’s interests to withdraw from the NPT.’’
Adherence to the NPT is certified by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. It held a meeting in Vienna yesterday that was overshadowed by a row over an inspector who was blocked from entering Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment plant.
Iran claimed that the inspector was stopped after she triggered an alarm checking for traces of explosive nitrates. The agency said that the inspector had briefly been prevented from leaving Iran. The EU said it was ‘‘deeply concerned’’ while the US called the detention ‘‘an outrageous provocation’’.
The developments unfolded as a new report claimed that Iran had tipped ‘‘the balance of effective power’’ in its favour against its regional rival, Saudi Arabia, despite that country’s conventional superiority.
The International Institute of Strategic Studies said that Iran had achieved its aims at a fraction of the cost of Saudi Arabia’s multibillion-dollar defence budget ‘‘by countering superior conventional forces with influence operations and use of third-party forces’’.
The key to its success is the alQuds Force, the external operations wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps led by General Qassem Soleimani. The general, who answers directly to Iran’s supreme leader, is responsible for operations and support of proxy militias across the ‘‘Shia crescent’’ from Iran to Lebanon via Iraq and Syria. As Iraq experiences an upsurge of anti-Iranian feeling, he has flown secretly into Baghdad twice in the past month to pull strings in the Shia-dominated security and political establishment and preserve Tehran’s influence there.
‘‘Iran’s expansion of proliferationsensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout.’’ Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state