The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has asked the Iranian authorities for clarification, ruling “Technically not credible” the information that they had provided to him on a suspicious site, according to a report consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Wednesday, November 11.
Tehran also continues to accumulate uranium: the amount of low-enriched uranium now exceeds 12 times the authorized limit, according to this document, which is to be considered next week at the Board of Governors.
It reached, on November 2, 2,442.9 kilos for an authorized limit of 202.8 kilos (or 300 kilos of UF6 equivalent). In the previous report, going back to September, this stock was 2,105.4 kilograms.
Iran is therefore continuing its uranium production trajectory, in response to the United States’ withdrawal from the agreement signed in 2015 in Vienna and the reinstatement by the Trump administration of the sanctions that plunged the country into a violent recession.
A third site asks questions
For Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the election of Democrat Joe Biden offers the United States the possibility “To catch up” For their “Past mistakes” vis-à-vis Iran. “Our goal is to break the pressure of sanctions which overwhelms our people, he argued, Wednesday. Whenever the opportunity arises, we will act responsibly. “
If sanctions are lifted, and only on these conditions, Iran has promised to return to honoring its commitments made under the 2015 agreement.
After several months of arm wrestling, Tehran had shown cooperation by authorizing, in September, the IAEA inspectors to access two sites suspected of having hosted in the past undeclared nuclear activities.
Analysis results are not yet available. But a third site raises questions, and this is the one that the IAEA pointed out in its report.
The UN agency claims “Full and rapid explanations from Iran regarding the presence of anthropogenic uranium particles”, resulting from human activities, on an undeclared site. Its location has never been officially specified, but diplomatic sources told AFP that it was a warehouse in the district of Turquzabad, in the capital, denounced by the Israeli government.
The director general of the UN agency, Rafael Grossi, had already expressed his concern in March on this subject. “The fact that we have found traces is very important, it means that there is the possibility of nuclear activities and material that are not under international control and of which we do not know either the origin or the fate “, he had then estimated.
