Iran plans to enrich 20% uranium ‘as soon as possible’

Iran said on Saturday it plans to enrich uranium up to 20% at its Fordo underground nuclear facility “as soon as possible”, pushing its program back a technical step from military grade levels because it increases the pressure on the West over the tattered atomic accord.

The move comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States in the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which unilaterally withdrew America from the Tehran nuclear deal in 2018.

This sparked a series of escalating incidents capped by a US drone strike that killed a senior Iranian general in Baghdad a year ago, an anniversary coming Sunday that now worries US officials about possible retaliation from Iran. .

Iran’s decision to start getting 20% ​​richer a decade ago nearly led to an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that only eased with the 2015 atomic accord. of 20% enrichment could see the return of mastery of rupture.

Even Ali Akbar Salehi, the United States-trained leader of the Civil Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, offered a military analogy to describe his agency’s readiness to take the next step.

“We are like soldiers and our fingers are on the triggers,” Salehi told Iranian national television. “The commander needs to order and we fire. We’re ready for it and will produce (20% enriched uranium) as soon as possible.”

Iran’s move comes after its parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at increasing enrichment to pressure Europe to ease sanctions. It also serves as pressure ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Joe Biden, who has said he is ready to return to the nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged that Iran informed its inspectors of the decision by letter after news broke Friday night.

Iran informed the agency that in order to comply with a legal act recently adopted by the country’s parliament, the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization intends to produce low enriched uranium … until ‘20% at the Fordo enrichment plant, “the IAEA said in a statement.

The IAEA added that Iran had not indicated when it planned to step up enrichment, although the agency “has inspectors present in Iran 24/7 and they have a regular access to Fordo “. The parliamentary bill also called on Iran to expel these inspectors, although it appears Tehran still has not decided to take this step.

Salehi said Iran should replace natural uranium in Fordo’s centrifuges with material already 4% enriched to begin the process of switching to 20%.

“It should be done under the supervision of the IAEA,” Salehi added.

Since the collapse of the agreement, Iran has resumed enrichment at Fordo, near the Shiite holy city of Qom, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Tehran.

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Protected by the mountains, Fordo is surrounded by anti-aircraft guns and other fortifications. It’s about the size of a football field, large enough to accommodate 3,000 centrifuges, but small and rugged enough to cause U.S. officials to suspect it had a military purpose when they exposed the site publicly in 2009. .

The 2015 deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. The deal also called for Fordo’s transformation into a research and development facility.

Under former Iranian extremist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Tehran has started 20% enrichment. Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear weapons program, feared Tehran would build a bomb.

After Fordo’s discovery, the United States worked on so-called “bunker buster” bombs designed to strike such facilities. As Israel threatened at one point to bomb Iranian nuclear sites like Fordo, US officials reportedly showed them video of a bunker bomb destroying a model Fordo in the desert of the American Southwest.

Israel, which under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued to criticize Iran’s nuclear program, made no immediate comment on Saturday.

At present, Iran is enriching uranium to the tune of 4.5%, in violation of the deal limit of 3.67%. Experts say Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium in storage for at least two nuclear weapons, if it chooses to pursue them. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Iran separately has begun construction of a new site at Fordo, according to satellite photos obtained by the Associated Press in December.

Iran’s announcement coincides with the anniversary of the US drone hitting Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last year. This attack later saw Iran retaliate with a ballistic missile strike injuring dozens of US soldiers in Iraq. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian airliner that night, killing all 176 people on board.

As the anniversary approached, the United States sent B-52 bombers over the region and sent a nuclear-powered submarine to the Persian Gulf.

Sailors on Thursday discovered a limpet mine on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq near the Iranian border as it was preparing to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining, although it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 that the US Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran has denied being involved.

In November, an Iranian scientist who founded the country’s military nuclear program two decades earlier was killed in an attack Tehran attributes to Israel.