Iran stepping up its nuke production in retaliation for U.S. leaving ’15 deal
Iran said Monday that it has started using a new set of advanced centrifuges, bringing the country a step closer to being able to produce enough nuclear material for a bomb.
It is the latest move by Iran to exceed the limitations of the nuclear agreement it signed in 2015, and it was done in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s withdrawing from that deal and imposing new economic sanctions.
The Iranian government reiterated that it was prepared to reverse its buildup if the European powers that signed the agreement found a way to ease the effect of the U.S. sanctions. Tehran has pursued a calibrated campaign of steps beyond the boundaries of the 2015 deal, steadily ratcheting up pressure on the Europeans.
But if the European commitments “are fully implemented, we will come close to what we had in the nuclear deal, too,” Ali Rabiei, a government spokesman, said at a news conference in Tehran, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
“Our final goal is full implementation of the nuclear deal,” he said, adding that Iran’s moves “are aimed at bringing the other side back to compliance.”
The announcement came as Iran celebrated the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, when 52 Americans were taken hostage.
In Washington, the Trump administration marked the anniversary with new sanctions on Iranian leaders. The Treasury Department action targeted the general staff of Iran’s armed forces and nine associates of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader. Among them were the ayatollah’s chief of staff, one of his sons and the head of Iran’s judiciary.
“This action further constricts the supreme leader’s ability to execute his agenda of terror and oppression,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Besides imposing the new sanctions, the administration also raised a $5 million reward to $20 million for information leading to the recovery of Robert Levinson, an American who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Levinson, a former FBI agent who worked as a private investigator and part-time consultant for the CIA, vanished while trying to recruit an intelligence source for the CIA. He has not been seen in nearly a decade.