The director of the UN atomic agency has warned that Iran is enriching uranium to the level reached by “only countries that make bombs.”

The Director of the United Nations Agency for Nuclear Surveillance, Rafael Grossi, qualified as Iran’s uranium enrichment program “very disturbing”, in an interview with the Financial Times published this Wednesday.

Iran was enriching uranium to levels of purity “only achieved by countries that make bombs.”said Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

His words come at a time when Iran and world powers negotiate in Vienna to develop measures that the Islamic Republic and the United States must adopt in the area of ​​sanctions and nuclear activities to fully comply with their 2015 nuclear pact with the powers.

The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, prompting Iran to constantly push the boundaries of the deal on its nuclear program. designed to make it difficult to develop an atomic bomb, an ambition Tehran still denies.

“A country that gets 60% richer is something very serious: only countries that make bombs reach this level”Grossi told the Financial Times. “Sixty percent is almost military grade, the commercial enrichment is 2.3 (percent),” he added.

He assured that Iran had the “sovereign right” to develop its program, but clarified that “It’s a diploma that requires a watchful eye”.

Grossi said that most of the measures taken by Iran could be reversed relatively easily, but that the level of research and development that had taken place was an issue.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle: once you know how to do it, you know, and the only way to check is to check“, he claimed.

“The Iranian program has grown, it has become more sophisticated, so that the linear return to 2015 is no longer possible. What can be done is to keep their activities below the 2015 parameters, ”he concluded.

(With information from Reuters)

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