Iran admits to enriching uranium to a level of 84 percent

 

Iran publicly admitted on Thursday that it had, in fact, enriched uranium for the first time to a purity of 84 percent, which would have brought the Islamic Republic closer than ever to material suitable for use in bombs. This charge was made by international inspectors.

The West is under renewed pressure to handle Tehran's programme after a news outlet affiliated with the highest levels of Iranian theocracy acknowledged it in 2018. The programme had been restrained by the 2015 nuclear agreement that Washington unilaterally withdrew from in 2018. Following were years of attacks in the Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the newly re-elected Israeli prime minister, has already threatened to use military force in a manner similar to when Israel previously destroyed nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria. Although no war broke out as a result of those attacks, Iran possesses a stockpile of ballistic missiles, drones, and other weapons that it and its allies have already employed in the region.

Nour News, a website affiliated with Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which is presided over by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made the statement on Thursday. During widespread protests in Iran, Nour News was separately sanctioned by Canada for engaging in "gross and systemic human rights breaches and perpetuating disinformation activities to excuse the Iranian regime's repression and persecution of its population."

The remarks by Nour News come after days of ambiguous remarks by Iran that did not directly address the charge made by IAEA inspectors that Tehran had enriched its nuclear material up to 84 percent.

Inspectors had discovered uranium particles that had been up to 84 per cent enriched, according to a Sunday report from Bloomberg. The Vienna-based IAEA, an organization of the United Nations, has not refuted the story, merely stating that it is "discussing with Iran the outcomes of recent agency verification activities."

Nour News asked the IAEA to "not fall prey to the temptation of Western countries" and claim that Iran's nuclear programme was "totally peaceful" in remarks posted on Thursday.

On the eve of the IAEA board meeting, Nour News tweeted, "It will be obvious shortly that the IAEA's startling revelation of identifying 84 percent enriched uranium particles in Iran's enrichment facilities was an inspector's error or was a purposeful effort to create political atmospheres against Iran." The board, a collection of governments that manages the IAEA, will convene starting on March 6 in Vienna.

An inquiry regarding the comments made by Nour News on Thursday did not immediately receive a response from the IAEA.

Although the IAEA claims to have discovered two cascades of advanced IR-6 centrifuges at Iran's underground Fordo facility "interconnected in a way that was substantially different from the mode of operation declared by Iran to the agency in November last year," it was not immediately clear where the 84 percent enrichment allegedly took place. At Fordo, Iran is believed to have been enriching uranium up to a purity of 60%, which nonproliferation specialists have already said has no civilian application for Tehran.