Tehran has told the UN nuclear watchdog it was advancing research on uranium metal production, in what would be a fresh breach of the limits in Iran’s 2015 deal with world powers.
The latest move, which adds to pressure on US president-elect Joe Biden days before his inauguration, concerns Iran’s plans to conduct research on uranium metal production at a centre in the city of Isfahan.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement “Iran informed the agency in a letter on 13 January that ‘modification and installation of the relevant equipment for the mentioned R&D activities have been already started’ ”.
Iran says the research is aimed at providing advanced fuel for a research reactor in Tehran.
“Natural uranium will be used to produce uranium metal in the first stage,” the Iranian ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Kazem Gharib Abadi, said on Twitter.
The topic is sensitive because uranium metal can be used as a component in nuclear weapons and the 2015 deal contained a 15-year ban on “producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys”.
After 10 years, Iran would have been allowed to initiate research on producing uranium metal-based fuel “in small agreed quantities” but only if the other parties to the deal had given approval.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).