Iran accused of cranking up nuclear capacity by UN watchdog
Uranium enrichment has been advanced amid talks impasse as Israel says Tehran is creating chaos
IRAN has escalated its uranium enrichment with the use of advanced machines, the UN atomic watchdog said in a leaked report.
Western diplomats have long expressed concern about advanced machinery used at Iran’s underground Fordow plant.
Deployment of these so-called modified sub-headers means Iran could switch more quickly and easily to enriching to higher purity levels.
While Iran is required to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about such a switch, if it chose not to, it might escape detection for some time as there is a lag between enrichment and IAEA verification of what is produced.
In a report on June 20, the IAEA said Iran had begun feeding uranium hexafluoride gas, known as UF6, for passivation, a process that comes before enrichment.
The IAEA verified on July 6 that passivation had ended.
The move is the latest step of many to move beyond the restrictions which the 2015 deal imposed. It comes as talks to revive that deal are at an impasse.
Last week the Biden administration announced a fresh round of Iran-related sanctions amid continuing diplomatic efforts to revive the deal, which former US president Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018.
The development comes days after indirect talks were held in Qatar to try to restore the multilateral agreement that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Israel has called for normalisation to be “promoted and expanded” in the region.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Idan Roll, Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, called for normalisation – the process of peace treaties between the states of the Arab League and Israel – to be rolled out across the Middle East.
He went on to warn that brokering a new nuclear deal would not stop Iran from causing “chaos”.
Mr Roll’s comments come ahead of Joe Biden’s trip to Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia later this month.
It is understood that the US President will encourage the normalisation of Israel-Saudi relations while seeking to ease Palestinian tensions.
The second half of 2020 saw Washington broker a flurry of normalisation deals between Arab League states – including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – and Israel. Now Israel is calling for more states to follow suit.
Mr Roll said: “We should all promote the moderate forces in the region and promote normalisation and expanding the circle of normalisation.” He also called for the international community to be alert to “Iran creating chaos” and the country’s “potential nuclear capabilities” and “the intricate and dangerous grasp of Iran which is already in so many parts of the world”.
He added: “It is affecting Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Israel, and it’s affecting Gaza and Hamas in the way they are threatening and creating terror in Israel.
“So already you can see the grasp of Iran, you know, in different parts of the world. Iran is creating chaos. Chaos is a big word, but it comes down to actual people’s lives being ruined and actual countries that have been run down to the ground in a way that it’s hard to see.”
‘Iran is creating chaos. It comes down to people’s lives being ruined and countries being run down to the ground’