Iran’s uranium stocks are FIVE TIMES the limit agreed under 2015 deal, UN’s nuclear watchdog warns
- The IAEA said Iran’s stockpile had more than doubled to 2,250lbs since February
- 2015 deal with world powers allows only a much smaller stockpile of 461lbs
- The UN nuclear watchdog also demanded ‘clarifications’ over an undeclared site
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is five times larger than the limit agreed under its 2015 deal with world powers, the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned today.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran’s stockpile had more than doubled from 821lbs (372kg) in November to 2,250lbs (1,021kg) on February 19.
The faltering pact allows Iran only a much smaller stockpile of 461lbs (203kg) but Tehran has been taking a series of steps away from the deal in the last two years.
Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons, although Iran has always denied that it intends to do so.
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is five times larger than the limit agreed under its 2015 deal with world powers, the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned today. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is pictured in Tehran last month
The IAEA announced the latest figures in a confidential report distributed to member countries today.
The head of the nuclear watchdog today demanded ‘clarifications’ over an undeclared site in Tehran where uranium particles were found late last year.
Rafael Grossi, who was in Paris today meeting President Emmanuel Macron, said ‘Iran must decide to cooperate in a clearer manner with the agency to give the necessary clarifications.’
He added: ‘The fact that we found traces [of uranium] is very important. That means there is the possibility of nuclear activities and material that are not under international supervision and about which we know not the origin or the intent.
‘That worries me,’ Grossi added.
The IAEA has for months been pressing Tehran for information about the kind of activities being carried out at the undeclared site.
While the IAEA has not identified the site in question, diplomatic sources say the agency asked Iran about a site in the Turquzabad district of Tehran.
Israel has alleged secret atomic activity at the site in the past.
Iran began reneging on its commitments after Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposed tough sanctions on Iran.
Rouhani and other officials inspect nuclear technology last year in Tehran where the Iranian regime has been taking a series of steps away from the deal
In addition to its banned stockpiles, Iran has ramped up further uranium enrichment by using more advanced centrifuges than the deal allows.
The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only 5,060 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges to enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.
However, Iran is known to be using IR-6 centrifuges and said last year that the country is now working on an IR-9 which would be 50 times faster than the IR-1.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said dozens of centrifuges had been installed or were being installed at the secretive Natanz plant in Iran.
The site’s existence was revealed by Western intelligence services and an exiled Iranian opposition group in August 2002.
Iran has denied ever seeking nuclear weapons, insisting its atomic programme is for entirely peaceful purposes.
Tehran has also indicated it is willing to return to the deal’s limits if it gets the sanctions relief it is seeking from European powers, but their efforts to help Iran avoid the U.S. measures have been largely ineffective.
In addition, Iran announced last July that it had exceeded the deal’s uranium enrichment level of 3.67 per cent.
Weapons-grade uranium needs to be enriched to around 90 per cent, but the time to get there is halved once it reaches 20 per cent.