Move to enrich uranium to 20% purity while foreign minister says Britain’s seizure of oil tanker is ‘piracy, pure and simple’
A general view of the Iranian capital Tehran and the Milad tower. Picture: GETTY IMAGES/ AFP/ ATTA KENARE
That could raise serious questions about whether the agreement, intended to block Iran from making a nuclear weapon, is still viable. Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, confirmed an announcement that Tehran had enriched uranium beyond the deal’s limit of 3.67% purity, passing 4.5%, according to the student’s news agency Isna. That followed an announcement a week ago that it had amassed a greater quantity of low-enriched uranium than permitted. said it was still verifying whether Iran had indeed exceeded the 3.67% limit.
Enriching uranium up to 20% purity would be a dramatic move, since that was the level Iran had achieved before the deal was put in place, although back then it had a far larger stockpile than it is likely to be able to rebuild in the short term. It is considered an important intermediate stage on the path to obtaining the 90% pure fissile uranium needed to make a bomb.
The nuclear diplomacy is only one aspect of a wider confrontation between Washington and Tehran that has threatened to spiral into open conflict since the US sharply tightened sanctions on Iran from the start of May.Washington’s European allies have been warning that a small mistake on either side could lead to war. European countries do not directly support the US sanctions, but have been unable to come up with ways to allow Iran to avert them.
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