Iran opens facility in step to raise nuclear capacity
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran announced Tuesday that it had completed a new centrifuge assembly center at the Natanz nuclear site, a first step to increasing its enrichment capacity.
While Iran said it would keep enrichment within limits set by the 2015 nuclear accord, the center’s opening seemed to signal that it could swing to industrial-level enrichment if that agreement, which the United States withdrew from last month, should further unravel.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told state television that the center’s construction had been “in line with our safeguard commitments but not pub-
licly announced.”
Salehi said Iran is prepared to resume work on advanced centrifuges that would dramatically increase its capacity for enrichment. But he said that, so far, the work is limited to building a new facility for assembling the centrifuges.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Iranian nuclear agency, said a letter had been sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency explaining the action. He also told the semiofficial Iranian Students’ News Agency that Tehran would increase its capacity to produce uranium hexafluoride, a feedstock for centrifuges.
Kamalvandi said Iran is “providing infrastructure and arrangements for high-speed and capacity in production of UF4 and UF6 gases as well as rotor of centrifuges.”
Spinning centrifuges convert the gases into enriched uranium that can be used for reactor fuel and medical isotopes. If enriched to higher levels, the material can be used for weapons.
It was unclear whether the
assembly center would actually begin to produce new centrifuges.
“It is important to note that Iran will remain far from having the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon even if they increase their enrichment efforts as described,” the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a statement.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran stopped enriching uranium to the 20 percent level that would allow for rapid development of a nuclear weapon and agreed to a limit of under 5 percent. It will adhere to that limit, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a speech Monday.
It was also uncertain whether the opening of the centrifuge plant would have any significant effect on Iran’s nuclear program, which continues to be closely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran currently is using nearly 5,000 centrifuges and enriching uranium at 3.5 percent, but it says it needs more enriched uranium for its only nuclear power plant. Iran denies it has ever sought nuclear weapons, which often require
uranium enriched to 90 percent.
When Tehran agreed in 2015 to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international and U.S. sanctions, European companies rushed to enter the Iranian market. European governments have been working to keep the deal alive and protect those investments after President Donald Trump withdrew and reimposed banking sanctions.
However, the U.S. sanctions would still be a major problem, particularly for multinational companies, and several European firms have already announced plans to pull out of Iran. On Monday, the French PSA Group, maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, which produces 440,000 vehicles a year in Iran, started closing its joint ventures with auto manufacturers in the country, though PSA said it would seek a waiver from the United States to maintain that production level.
In his speech, Khamenei warned the Europeans that Iran’s patience was limited, but analysts said Tehran’s demands of guaranteed purchases of Iranian oil and free bank transfers with the European Union might exceed what the
bloc could deliver in any rescue plan for the agreement.
“The Europeans expect the Iranian nation to tolerate and grapple with the sanctions, to give up their nuclear activities, which is an absolute requirement for the future of the country, and also to continue with the restrictions that have been imposed on them,” Khamenei said. “I would tell these governments that this bad dream will not come true.”
The Trump administration has shown no outward willingness to compromise on Iran. If anything, it has hardened its position that any companies that engage with Iran do so at their own peril.
In a speech Tuesday in Washington, the Treasury undersecretary in charge of sanctions enforcement, Sigal Mandelker, gave what amounted to a warning that the administration views Iran as a haven for terrorism financing, duplicity and human-rights abuses.
“The Iranian regime will deceive your companies, undermine the integrity of your financial systems, and put your institutions at risk of our powerful sanctions,” Mandelker said. “You must harden your financial networks, require your companies to do extra
due diligence to keep them from being caught in Iran’s deceptive web, and make clear the very significant risks of doing business with companies and persons in Iran.”
NETANYAHU, MACRON MEET
In France, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Emmanuel Macron held a joint news conference Tuesday yet stuck to their opposing views on Iran and the nuclear deal.
Macron said France will continue to work with the existing deal, which it considers the best way to control Iran’s nuclear activity. The French president said he doesn’t see how exiting the nuclear deal would help improve regional stability.
How can one “think that a total absence of controls and commitments is better than the 2015 framework?” he asked.
Netanyahu was a staunch opponent of the deal, and he welcomed the Trump administration’s decision last month to withdraw from it. Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China, which also signed the Iran nuclear agreement along with the United States, have said they want to preserve it.
Talking to reporters in Paris
after meeting the French leader at the Elysee Palace, Netanyahu said his main focus now was how to push Iranian forces out of Syria.
Netanyahu also called Tehran having nuclear weapons “the greatest threat to the world.”
“The nuclear archive that we uncovered recently proves that Iran lied to the world about its nuclear weapons program. And I believe now is the time to apply maximum pressure on Iran, make sure that their nuclear program doesn’t go anywhere,” he said.
Macron on Tuesday also raised the issue of the Palestinian territories, expressing his “condemnation of any form of violence toward civilians and in particular, these past few weeks in Gaza.”
Netanyahu started his European trip in Berlin on Monday. After his French visit, he heads to Britain to meet with Prime Minister Theresa May in an effort to rally support from allies against Iran.
Information for this article was contributed by Thomas Erdbrink of The New York Times and by Sylvie Corbet, Thomas Adamson, Oleg Cetinic and staff members of The Associated Press.