Iran continues to acquire uranium and is close to completing a factory where it can build more centrifuges to enrich it, the country's nuclear chief said Wednesday, adding that Iran's uranium stockpiles have nearly doubled in the last few years.
The announcement came a month after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he had ordered state agencies to prepare a contingency plan to increase uranium enrichment capacity in the event that the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers falls apart. Washington's withdrawal from the pact in May has placed the future of the agreement in serious doubt.
Under the terms of the 2015 agreement, reached between Iran and six world powers – Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in addition to the U.S., Iran agreed to curb its controversial nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
The other world powers have been scrambling to save the accord, arguing it offers the best way to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.
Iran has said it will wait to see what the other powers can do, but has signaled recently that it is ready to get its uranium enrichment activities back on track. Iran continues to insist that its nuclear work is meant just for electricity generation and other peaceful projects.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Wednesday that the new centrifuge factory did not in itself violate the terms of the agreement.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the organization was aware of the announcement but had "no comment."
"Instead of building this factory in the next seven or eight years, we built it during the negotiations, but have not started it," Salehi, said, according to state media.
"Of course, the [Supreme Leader] was completely informed and we gave him the necessary information at the time. And now that he has given the order this factory has started all its work," Salehi said.
The factory would have the capacity to build rotors for up to 60 IR-6 centrifuges per day, he added.
Separately, Salehi said that Iran now had a stockpile of up to 950 tons of uranium. He said Iran had imported 550 tons of uranium before the nuclear agreement and had acquired approximately another 400 tons after the agreement was finalized, bringing the total stockpile to between 900 and 950 tons.
Salehi did not specify where the additional 400 tons of uranium had come from, but that Iran is also working on exploration to find additional resources inside the country to meet more uranium needs domestically.
Last month, Salehi announced that Iran had begun working on infrastructure for advanced centrifuges at its Natanz facility.
