Iran notes nuclear accusation
U.N. inspectors: New enrichment high detected in uranium
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran on Thursday acknowledged an accusation attributed to international inspectors that it enriched uranium to 84 percent purity for the first time, which would put the Islamic Republic closer than ever to weapons-grade material.
The acknowledgement by a news website linked to the highest reaches of Iran’s theocracy renews pressure on the West to address Tehran’s program, which had been contained by the 2015 nuclear deal that America withdrew from in 2018.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently regained his country’s premiership, is threatening to take military action similar to when Israel previously bombed nuclear programs in Iraq and Syria.
Iran has vowed to destroy U.S. ally Israel, which makes a nuclear-armed Iran an even greater international security threat.
The acknowledgment Thursday came from Iran’s Nour News, a website linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The comments by Nour News follow days of muddled comments by Iran not directly acknowledging the accusation by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Bloomberg first reported Sunday that inspectors had detected uranium particles enriched up to 84 percent. The IAEA, a U.N. agency based in Vienna, has not denied the report, saying only “that the IAEA is discussing with Iran the results of recent agency verification activities.”
In its comments Thursday, Nour News urged the IAEA to “not fall prey to the seduction of Western countries” and declare that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely peaceful.”
It wasn’t clear where the 84 percent enrichment took place, but the IAEA has said it found two cascades of advanced centrifuges at Iran’s underground Fordo facility “interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran to the agency in November last year.”
Iran is known to have been enriching uranium at Fordo up to 60 percent purity — a level that nonproliferation experts say has no civilian use for Tehran.