DM Monitoring
VIENNA: Iran has enough uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade, for three atom bombs by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s definition and is still stonewalling the agency on key issues, confidential IAEA reports showed on Wednesday.
Iran’s steady progress in enriching to very high levels while failing to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with the cooperation it demands on a growing list of issues presents a challenge to both the agency and Western powers that have repeatedly called on Iran to reverse course.
Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% grew by 6.7 kg (14.8 pounds) to 128.3 kg (282.9 pounds) since the last report on Sept. 4, one of the two reports to member states seen by Reuters said. That is more than three times the roughly 42 kg (92.6 pounds) that by the IAEA’s definition is theoretically enough, if enriched further, for a nuclear bomb.
“That’s quite an amount, especially if you don’t use it for anything,” a senior diplomat said, referring to the fact Iran is the only country to enrich to such a high level without producing nuclear weapons. Weapons-grade is around 90%. Iran has enough uranium enriched to lower levels for more bombs, but it denies seeking such weapons.
The rate at which Iran is enriching to 60%, however, has slowed to around 3 kg (6.6 pounds) a month from 9 kg (19.8 pounds) earlier this year, which diplomats said is the apparent result of indirect negotiations with the United States that led to a prisoner exchange between the two countries in September.
The number of cascades, or clusters, of uranium-enriching centrifuges in operation is also unchanged, the report said. Tensions between the agency and Iran, however, have only increased.
The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution a year ago ordering Iran to comply with an IAEA investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites. Since then the IAEA has narrowed the list of sites to two but little other progress has been made.
