Iran violates N-deal again on hostage crisis anniversary
US uses the 40th anniversary to sanction key officials reporting to Iran’s supreme leader, including his son
TEHRAN: Iran announced on Monday its latest violations of the nuclear deal with world powers, saying that it now operates twice as many advanced centrifuges banned by the 2015 accord and is working on a prototype that’s 50 times faster than those allowed by the deal.
The announcement came as the country marks the 40th anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover that started a 444-day hostage crisis. By starting up these advanced centrifuges, Iran further cuts into the one year that experts estimate Tehran would need to have enough material for building a nuclear weapon.
The comments by Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, came ahead of an expected announcement by Tehran of the new ways it would break the accord.
Already, Iran has broken through its stockpile and enrichment limitations, trying to pressure Europe to offer it a new deal, more than a year since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Speaking to state TV, Salehi said Tehran is now operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges — twice as many as before. Such a centrifuge, an IR-6, can produce enriched uranium 10 times as fast as the first-generation IR-1s allowed under the accord.
The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only 5,060 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges to enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.
Salehi also announced that scientists were working on a prototype he called the IR-9, which worked 50-times faster than the IR-1. Meanwhile, demonstrators gathered in front of the former US embassy in downtown Tehran on Monday as state television aired footage from other cities across the country making the anniversary.
Meanwhile, the US used the 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis to sanction key officials reporting to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, including his son, and called on the Islamic Republic to release Americans believed to be held in the country.
The US said on Monday that the officials include those involved in terrorist attacks in Lebanon and Argentina.
Three Trump administration officials, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, also announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the return of American Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007.
“Today the Treasury Department is targeting the unelected officials who surround Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and implement his destabilising policies,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.