The Iranian authorities have initiated the process to produce 20% enriched uranium, well above the threshold set by the 2015 international agreement, in the Fordo underground plant. The announcement was made Monday January 4 by state television, citing government spokesman Ali Rabii.
In a letter, dated December 31, Tehran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its desire to produce uranium enriched to 20%, a level practiced before the conclusion of the agreement of Vienna.
In response to the announcement, the IAEA said its inspectors were monitoring the activities of Fordo’s uranium enrichment plant. “Based on this information, the agency’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, is expected to submit a report to IAEA member states later today”the spokesperson for the organization said in an email to Reuters news agency.
The European Union (EU) is awaiting a briefing from the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, scheduled for the day, before deciding on possible action. But Iran’s announcement “Would constitute a considerable departure from its nuclear commitments” under the Vienna agreement “With serious consequences in terms of non-proliferation”, the EU warned.
The United States denounced this new sprain, calling it “Nuclear blackmail”, “An attempt which will continue to fail”, reacted a spokesperson for the State Department.
Overcome the main commitments
According to the latest report from the UN agency, published in November, Iran was enriching uranium to a degree of purity higher than the limit provided for in the 2015 treaty (3.67%) but not exceeding 4.5% threshold, and still complied with the very strict IAEA inspection regime. But the case has been in turmoil since the assassination of an Iranian nuclear physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, at the end of November.
In the wake of this attack attributed by Iran to Israel, the Iranian parliament – conservative majority – passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of “Less 120 kilograms per year of 20% enriched uranium” and of ” end “ the IAEA inspections, intended to verify that the country is not seeking to acquire the atomic bomb.
The government of moderate President Rouhani had opposed this initiative denounced by the other parties to the 2015 agreement, who had called in December Tehran not to “Compromise the future”. The agreement was reached after years of bitter negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – United Kingdom, China, France, Russia, United States – as well as Germany. .
The Constitutional Guardian Council, which arbitrates in disputes between the government and parliament in Iran, approved the law in December and several officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the government would comply with it. her decision. On Monday, Rabii added that the government’s position on the law remains the same. “But that he considered himself obliged to implement it”.
From May 2019 Iran had already started to free itself from the main commitments made under the Vienna agreement intended to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against it. This disengagement began a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from these agreements, followed by the return of heavy American sanctions which deprived Iran of the expected fallout from the agreement.
The announcement of the resumption of 20% enrichment comes a few weeks before the departure of the White House of President Donald Trump, who has led a campaign of “Maximum pressure against Iran”. The arrival of President-elect Joe Biden gives hope for a rescue of the pact.
