The United
Nations' atomic watchdog agency confirmed Thursday that Iran has informed it
that the country has begun installing equipment for the production of uranium
metal, which would be another violation of the landmark nuclear deal with world
powers.
Iran maintains
its plans to conduct research and development on uranium metal production are
part of its “declared aim to design an improved type of fuel,” the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Agency said.
Uranium metal
can also be used for a nuclear bomb, however, and research on its production is
specifically prohibited in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
signed with world powers in 2015.
The ultimate
goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something
Iran insists it does not want to do. Iran now has enough enriched uranium to
make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount it had before the nuclear deal was
signed.
IAEA inspectors
visited the Isfahan plant where Iran has said it plans to conduct the research
on Jan. 10, and officials were informed by Tehran on Jan. 13 that “modification
and installation of the relevant equipment for the mentioned R&D activities
have been already started," the agency said.
Iran's ambassador
to the IAEA, Kazem Gharibabadi, repeated that in a tweet on Wednesday, adding
that “natural uranium will be used to produce uranium metal in the first
stage.”
He told Iran's
official news agency IRNA that the move will elevate Iran to the level of
“progressive nations in production of new fuels.”
It was the
latest in a string of violations of the JCPOA that Iran has undertaken since
President Donald Trump pulled the United States unilaterally out of the deal in
2018, saying it needed to be re-negotiated.
Tehran has been
using the violations to put pressure on the other signatories — Britain,
France, Germany, China and Russia — to provide more incentives to Iran to
offset crippling American sanctions reimposed after the US exited the deal.
President-elect
Joe Biden, who was vice president when the JCPOA was negotiated, has said he
hopes to return the US to the deal.
Britain, France
and Germany said last week, however, that Iran “risks compromising” chances of
diplomacy with Washington after Tehran announced another violation — that it
was starting to enrich uranium to 20% purity, a technical step away from
weapons-grade levels of 90%.
The foreign
ministers of the three European nations said in a joint statement then that the
Iranian activity “has no credible civil justification.”
They said the
enrichment was a clear violation of the deal and “further hollows out the
agreement.”
Germany's
Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment Thursday, but the announcement on the
production of uranium metal now further complicates trying to get Washington
back on board, according to The Associated Press.
Those working to save the deal also note that despite the violations,
Iran continues to allow inspectors to access all sites in the country.
