Iran has further increased its stock of uranium enriched at weapon quality levels, a confidential report of the United Nations nuclear watching said on Saturday and called Tehran to change urgent CAP and comply with the agency’s investigation.
The report arrives at a sensitive moment because Tehran and Washington have held Several series of discussions In recent weeks, on a possible nuclear agreement that US President Donald Trump is trying to reach.
The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna – which was seen by the Associated Press – indicates that on May 17, Iran amassed 900.8 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60%.
This represents an increase of 294.9 pounds – or almost 50% – since the last report of the IAEA in February. The 60% enriched material is a short technical step in the quality of weapons of 90%. A report in February put this stock level at 605.8 pounds.
There was no immediate commentary by Tehran on the new IAEA report.
The AIEA report has raised a severe warning, claiming that Iran is now “the only non -nuclear state to produce such material” – what the agency said was “serious concern”.
Jon Gambrell / AP
According to the Watchdog, around 92.5 pounds of uranium enriched 60% enriched, if it is 90% enriched, according to the guard dog.
The IAEA report, a quarterly, also estimated that on May 17, the overall stock of enriched uranium Iran – which includes uranium enriched at lower levels – amounted to 20,387.4 pounds. It is an increase of 2,101.4 pounds since the February report.
Iran nuclear program
Iran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but the head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, warned that Tehran has sufficiently enriched with uranium at almost quality levels to make “several” nuclear bombs if she chooses to do so.
Iranian officials have increasingly suggested that Tehran could continue an atomic bomb.
The American intelligence agencies assess that Iran has not yet started a program of arms, but “undertook activities which position it better to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses it”.
Israel said on Saturday’s report was a clear warning sign that “Iran is fully determined to complete its nuclear weapon program,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
He said that the IAEA report “strongly strengthens what Israel has been saying for years – the objective of the Iranian nuclear program is not peaceful.”
He also added that the enrichment level of Iran “has no civil justification” and called on the international community to “act now to stop Iran”.
It is rare that Netanyahu made declarations on Saturday, the Jewish day of rest, underlying the emergency with which he sees the question.
Grossi said on Saturday that he “reiterates his urgent call for Iran to cooperate fully and effectively” with the IAEA’s investigation In traces of uranium discovered on several sites in Iran.
The IAEA also distributed districts to the Member States on Saturday a second 22 -page confidential report, also seen by the AP, which Grosi asked for a resolution adopted by the Council of Governors of the IAEA of 35 members last November.
In this so-called “full report”, the IAEA said that Iran’s cooperation with the agency was “less than satisfactory” with regard to traces of uranium discovered by IEA inspectors in several places in Iran that Tehran has not declared nuclear sites.
Western officials suspect that the traces of uranium discovered by the IAEA could prove that Iran had a secret military nuclear program until 2003.
One of the sites became publicly known in 2018 after Netanyahu revealed it to the United Nations and called it a hidden illegal nuclear warehouse in a carpet cleaning plant.
Iran denied this, but in 2019, IEA inspectors detected the presence of uranium particles of human origin.
After initially blocked access to the IAEA, the inspectors were able to collect samples in 2020 from two other places where they also detected the presence of uranium particles of human origin.
The three locations have become known as Turquzabad, Varamin and Marivan. A fourth unoblainted location named Lavisan-Shian is also part of the IAEA investigation, but the IAEA inspectors have never visited the site because it was shaved and demolished by Iran after 2003.
In the full report on Saturday, the IAEA says that the “lack of answers and clarifications provided by Iran” to question the guard dog concerning Lavisan-Sian, Varamin and Marivan “led the agency to conclude that these three locations and other possible linked locations have been part of a structured unregistered structured nuclear program.”
HEINZ-PETER Bader / AP
How the world could react to the UN report
The full Saturday report could be a basis for possible additional stages of European nations, leading to a potential climbing of tensions between Iran and the West.
European countries could move on to the outbreak of snap-back sanctions against Iran which were lifted under the original nuclear agreement of 2015 before October, when the agreement officially expires.
Thursday, senior Iranian officials rejected speculations on an imminent nuclear agreement with the United States, stressing that any agreement must Skip the sanctions entirely And allow the country’s nuclear program to continue.
The comments came one day after Trump said he said that he had to hang on to Iran giving the American administration for more time to put pressure for a new agreement with Tehran.
Trump said on Friday that he still thought that an agreement could be concluded in “a not too distant future”.
“They don’t want to be exploded. They prefer to conclude an agreement,” said Trump about Iran. He added: “It would be a great thing that we could have an agreement without the bombs being abandoned throughout the Middle East.”