The United Nations nuclear watchdog said in a report Thursday that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium had reached more than 15 times the limit set out in the 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
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The announcement comes a day after Director General Rafael Grossi pledged the International Atomic Energy Agency would "never abandon" its attempts to get the regime to clarify the previous presence of nuclear material at several undeclared sites there.
The stock of enriched uranium amassed by Iran in breach of the agreement is growing to the point that its most highly-enriched material is most of the way to a common bomb yardstick.
The report showed Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity had almost doubled, increasing by 15.5 kg to 33.2 kg (46 to 110 pounds). A senior diplomat said that is around three-quarters of the amount needed, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb according to a common definition.
That definition – 25 kg of uranium enriched to 90% – is a theoretical yardstick and how much is needed in real life would depend on further processes the material would still have to go through to make an actual bomb, the senior diplomat cautioned.
That total stock of enriched uranium now stands at 3.2 tons, an increase of 707.4 kg on the quarter, the report showed. That is still less than the more than five tons the Islamic Republic accumulated before the 2015 deal but the highest purity it achieved then was 20%.
The report is one of two that are usually issued together, the other one being on unresolved issues around nuclear material that the IAEA suspects Iran failed to declare to the Vienna-based UN agency.
The IAEA has found particles of processed uranium at apparently three old sites that Iran never declared. The agency has been seeking answers from the regime on how the traces got there - a topic often referred to as "outstanding safeguards issues" – but has repeatedly said Tehran has not provided satisfactory answers.
That issue is one of the main remaining obstacles to reviving the JCPOA, diplomats said.
Iran wants the IAEA investigation ended as part of an agreement but Western powers have argued that the issue is beyond the scope of the 2015 deal, to which the IAEA is not a party.
Grossi will travel to Tehran on Saturday hoping to agree on a "process" that would lead to the end of the investigation, potentially clearing a way for the wider agreement, diplomats said. The second report is being withheld until then.
The chief "will travel to Tehran for meetings with senior Iranian officials on Saturday. They will discuss outstanding safeguards issues with a view to address[ing] them," the IAEA said in a statement.
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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Thursday he spoke with Grossi ahead of his trip about the unexplained traces. Israel opposes a deal revival with its arch-foe Iran, which it sees as an existential threat were it armed with nuclear weapons.
Former US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact in 2018 and reimposed tough economic sanctions. That led Iran to breach many of the deal's restrictions, which were designed to make it harder for the regime to obtain the fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Iran denies any such ambition.
Three Iranian officials close to the talks said a wide array of sanctions, including those keeping Iran from exporting its oil and those on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi, were to be removed if the 2015 pact was revived.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
