Tehran poised for faster centrifuges as nuclear deal collapses
Iran is poised to begin work on advanced centrifuges that will enrich uranium faster as the 2015 nuclear deal unravels further and a last-minute French proposal offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran for not being able to sell its crude oil abroad because of US sanctions looked increasingly unlikely.
Meanwhile, Iran released seven crew members from a detained British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in a goodwill gesture and the mariners flew out of Iran, the ship’s owner said.
However, Iran has yet to say officially what exact steps it will take as a deadline it gave Europeans to salvage the deal is to expire on Friday.
Centrifuges that speed enrichment further shorten the time Tehran would need to have enough material
NUCLEAR GAME
available to build a nuclear weapon — if it chose to do so. Under the deal, experts thought Iran would need about a year to reach that point.
The US meanwhile continued its effort to choke off Iran’s crude oil sales abroad, a crucial source of government revenue. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who continues a whirlwind global diplomatic tour, insists his country will do everything it can to keep those sales going, though he described US sanctions in an angry tweet on Thursday as the equivalent of a “jail warden.”
“We will sell our oil, one way or the other,” Zarif told Russian broadcaster RT in a recently aired interview. “The United States will not be able to prevent that.”
Tensions between Iran and the US have been growing since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran agree to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In the time since, Trump reimposed old sanctions and created new ones, going as far as targeting Iranian officials like Zarif and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Meanwhile, mysterious oil tanker attacks struck near the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, attacks that the US blames on Iran. Tehran denies it was involved. Iran also shot down a US military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers as America deployed nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, advanced fighter jets and more troops to the region. The US has sought to seize an Iranian oil tanker, the Adrian Darya-1, now thought by analysts to be off the Syrian coast despite a pledge by Tehran that its cargo was not bound there.
Late on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran would soon begin work on research and development of “all kinds” of centrifuges. Those devices enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.
Iran has begun breaking limits of the deal, such as just creeping beyond its 3.67 percent-enrichment limit and its stockpile rules. Using advanced centrifuges speeds enrichment and Iranian officials already have raised the idea of enriching to 20 percent, which is a short technical step from weaponsgrade levels of 90 percent.