Iran enriching uranium with advanced centrifuges: IAEA

VIENNA: Iran has begun enriching uranium with a second cascade of advanced IR-2m centrifuges in its underground plant at Natanz in breach of its deal with major powers, a UN nuclear watchdog report to member states showed. Iran was already enriching with one cascade, or cluster, of 174 IR-2m machines underground at Natanz. It informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in December that it planned to install three more IR-2m cascades there, one of which is now online, the IAEA report dated on Monday said. “The Agency also verified that installation of the second of the aforementioned three (extra) cascades of IR-2m centrifuges was nearing completion and installation of the third of these cascades had started’’, said the confidential report. On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested a way to overcome the US-Iranian impasse over who goes first in returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying a top EU official could “synchronize” or “choreograph” the moves. Zarif’s stance was a shift from his position, expressed in a January 22 article in which he said the United States should remove US sanctions before Iran returned to the deal. “There can be a mechanism to basically either synchronize it or coordinate what can be done’’, Zarif told CNN when asked how to bridge the gap. Each government wants the other to resume compliance first with the agreement. BREAKOUT TIME Meanwhile, Israel’s energy minister on Tuesday said it would take Iran around six months to produce enough fissile material for a single nuclear weapon, a timeline almost twice as long as that anticipated by a senior member of the Biden administration. Israel is wary of the Biden administration’s intent to re-enter the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and has long opposed the agreement. Washington argues that the previous Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal backfired by prompting Iran to abandon caps on nuclear activities. Speaking last month a day before he took office as US secretary of state, Antony Blinken said that the so-called “breakout time” — in which Iran might ramp up enrichment of uranium to bomb-fuel purity — “has gone from beyond a year (under the deal) to about three or four months”. He said he based his comments on information in public reporting. But Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, in a radio interview, said the Trump administration “seriously damaged Iran’s nuclear project and entire force build-up”. “In terms of enrichment, they (Iranians) are in a situation of breaking out in around half a year if they do everything required’’, he told public broadcaster Kan. “As for nuclear weaponry, the range is around one or two years.” Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weaponry, has recently accelerated its breaches of the deal, which it started violating in 2019 response to the US withdrawal and reimposition of sanctions against it. — Reuters