Alarm bells sound as Iran breaks limit for uranium production
Iran has acknowledged it has broken the limit set on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by the 2015 nuclear deal.
It marks Tehran’s first major departure from the unravelling agreement a year after the US unilaterally withdrew from the accord.
Downing Street said Iran’s announcement is “extremely concerning”.
Iran stepped up its production of low-enriched uranium, which can be used to make reactor fuel and potentially nuclear weapons, in response to US sanctions after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement.
The state had been expected for days to acknowledge it broke the limit after earlier warning it would do so. It held off on publicly making an announcement as European leaders met to discuss ways to save the accord.
Iran has threatened to increase its enrichment of uranium closer to weapons-grade levels by 7 July.
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Tehran he had been told the 300kg limit permitted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had now been exceeded.
The deal limited Iran to 300 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 3.67 per cent.
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog agency later confirmed Iran has surpassed the stockpile limit. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its director general, Yukiya Amano, has informed its board of governors that the organisation had verified that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 3.67 per cent had exceeded the 300kg allowed.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s official spokesman said: “Iran’s announcement is extremely concerning.
“We will continue working with our JCPOA partners – in particularly with German and France – to keep the nuclear deal in place. This is in our shared security interests.
“We have been consistently clear that our commitment to the JCPOA depends on Iran complying in full with the terms of the deal and we urge them to reverse this step.”
The announcement comes as tensions remain high between Iran and the US. Recent weeks have seen Iran shoot down a US military surveillance drone, and mysterious attacks on oil tankers.
Yossi Cohen, the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said yesterday that Iran was behind the recent attacks on targets across the Persian Gulf. Speaking at a security conference he said: “I can tell you, with certainty, from the best sources of Israeli and Western intelligence, that Iran is behind the attacks,” adding that they “were approved by the Iranian leadership, and were carried out, at least mostly, by the Revolutionary Guard and their surrogates”.