Iran continues to increase its stockpile of low-enriched uranium far beyond the limits set in a landmark nuclear deal with world powers and to enrich it to a greater purity than permitted, the UN's atomic watchdog agency said Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that as of Nov. 2, Iran had a stockpile of 2,442.9 kilograms (5,385.7 pounds) of low-enriched uranium, up from 2,105.4 kilograms (4,641.6 pounds) reported on Aug. 25.
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The nuclear deal signed in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kilograms (447 pounds).
The IAEA reported that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5%, higher than the 3.67% allowed under the deal.
Iran has openly announced all violations of the nuclear deal in advance, which have followed the decision by the US to pull out unilaterally in 2018.
The deal promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for the curbs on its nuclear program. Since the US withdrawal and imposition of new sanctions, Tehran has been putting pressure on the remaining parties with the violations to come up with new ways to offset the economy-crippling actions by Washington.
At the same time, the Iranian government has continued to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities, a key reason the countries that remain parties to the JCPOA say it's worth preserving.
The goal of the agreement is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, something the country insists it does not intend to do.
A widely cited analysis by the Washington-based Arms Control Association suggests that Iran now has more than double the material it would need to make a nuclear weapon. However, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told The Associated Press in an interview last month that his agency does not share that assessment.
Before agreeing to the nuclear deal, Iran enriched its uranium up to 20% purity, which is a short technical step away from the weapons-grade level of 90%. In 2013, Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was already more than 7,000 kilograms (7.72 tons) with higher enrichment, but it didn't pursue a bomb.
In the quarterly report distributed to members on Wednesday, the IAEA said it still has questions from the discovery last year of particles of uranium of man-made origin at a site outside Tehran not declared by Iran.
The United States and Israel had been pressing the IAEA for some time to look into the Turquzabad facility, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described to the UN in 2018 as a "secret atomic warehouse."
In the current report, the IAEA said the "compositions of these isotopically altered particles" found there were "similar to particles found in Iran in the past, originating from imported centrifuge components." It said it found Iran's response to questions last month "unsatisfactory."
"Following an assessment of this new information, the agency informed Iran that it continues to consider Iran's response to be not technically credible," the IAEA wrote this week. "A full and prompt explanation from Iran...is needed."
IAEA Commissioner Rafael Grossi told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that "evaluations regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities for Iran continue."
He said in his first speech to the 193-member world body, which was virtual because of the pandemic, that he welcomed the agreement he reached with Iranian officials in Tehran in August "on implementation of some safeguards implementation issues," including access to two sites.
Inspections have taken place and samples from the sites are being analyzed, he said.
Iran's Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi, told the assembly that "Iran and the agency have agreed to work in good faith to resolve these safeguards-related questions."
Ravanchi also said it is "of utmost importance" for the IAEA to consider available information on the nuclear activities of Saudi Arabia, its regional rival.
"If Saudi Arabia is seeking a peaceful nuclear program, it should act in a very transparent manner and allow the agency's inspectors to verify its activities," he said.
He said the IAEA also needs to take "an unbiased and professional approach" toward Israel, which is not a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Iran has finished moving a first cascade of advanced centrifuges from an above-ground plant at its main uranium enrichment site to an underground one in a fresh breach of its nuclear deal with big powers, a UN atomic watchdog report showed on Wednesday.
The move was the latest of many deliberate breaches by Iran of its 2015 deal with major powers in response to Washington's 2018 withdrawal from the landmark accord and its reimposition of sanctions against Tehran. The deal says the underground plant at Natanz can only be used for first-generation IR-1 machines.
"They finished installing one of the three cascades and they have started installing a second cascade," a senior diplomat said, adding that while they were being moved, these more efficient and productive machines were not operating as yet.
A cascade is an interlinked cluster of centrifuge machines.
Iran had previously informed the IAEA that it would transfer three cascades of advanced centrifuges at Natanz underground. The first, of IR-2m machines, is installed and connected but has not been fed with uranium hexafluoride gas, the feedstock for centrifuges, according to the report, obtained by Reuters.
The Islamic Republic has started installing a cascade of IR-4 machines in the underground plant but not the third cascade of IR-6 ones, the report said.
The 2015 deal was designed to extend the time Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to do so to at least a year from 2-3 months.
Iran has told the agency that it aims eventually to "concentrate" all its enrichment research and development – a term usually reserved for advanced centrifuges – in the area of the underground enrichment plant, the report said.
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