Tehran — Iran announced Saturday it has started up
advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges in a breach of its undertakings under a
troubled 2015 nuclear deal, days after the start of talks on rescuing the
accord.
اضافة اعلان
The United States had said Friday that it had offered “very
serious” ideas on reviving the hobbled agreement but was waiting for Tehran to
reciprocate, something Saturday’s move signally failed to do.
President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated a cascade of 164 IR-6
centrifuges for producing enriched uranium, as well as two test cascades — of
30 IR-5 and 30 IR-6S devices respectively — at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment
plant, in a ceremony broadcast by state television.
State TV aired no images of the injection of uranium
hexafluoride gas into the cascades, but broadcast a link with engineers at the
plant who said they had started the process and showed rows of centrifuges.
Rouhani also launched tests on the “mechanical stability” of
its latest-generation IR-9 centrifuges, and remotely opened a centrifuge
assembly factory to replace a plant that was badly damaged in a July 2020 “terrorist”
blast.
Under the 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers, Iran is
currently only allowed to use “first-generation” IR-1 centrifuges for
production, and to test a limited number of IR-4 and IR-5 devices.
The US unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018
under then-president Donald Trump, who reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran,
which responded by stepping back from several of its commitments under the
deal.
Trump’s successor Joe Biden has said he is prepared to
return, arguing the deal had — until Washington’s withdrawal — been successful
in dramatically scaling back Iran’s nuclear activities.
Iran’s latest move to step up uranium enrichment follows an
opening round of talks in Vienna Tuesday with representatives of the remaining
parties to the deal on bringing the US back into it.
The Vienna talks are focused not only on lifting the
crippling economic sanctions Trump reimposed, but also on bringing Iran back
into compliance.
All sides said the talks, in which Washington is not
participating directly but is relying on the European Union as an intermediary,
got off to a good start.
Iran has demanded that the US first lift all sanctions
imposed by Trump, including a sweeping unilateral ban on its oil exports,
before it falls back in line.
The “US — which caused this crisis— should return to full
compliance first,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted, adding that
“Iran will reciprocate following rapid verification.”
Seriousness of purpose
Washington has demanded movement from Tehran.
“The United States team put forward a very serious idea and
demonstrated a seriousness of purpose on coming back into compliance if Iran
comes back into compliance,” a US official told reporters as talks broke for
the weekend.
But the official said the United States was waiting for its
efforts to be “reciprocated” by Iran.
The US official indicated the major stumbling block in the
initial talks was not the order of compliance but rather which sanctions were
under discussion, as Iran is demanding an end to all US restrictions.
The nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, covers only nuclear sanctions and not US measures taken in
response to human rights or other concerns, the official said.
The far more powerful centrifuges started up on Saturday
allow uranium to be enriched quicker and in greater amounts than Iran’s
first-generation devices.
Uranium enrichment can produce the fuel for a nuclear
reactor, or in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic warhead. It
is one of the most sensitive nuclear activities carried out by Iran.
Rouhani again underlined at the ceremony, which coincided
with Iran’s National Nuclear Technology Day, that Tehran’s nuclear program is solely
for “peaceful” purposes.
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