▲ Centrifuge at the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran
Iran has announced that it has completed production of 50 kg of 20% enriched uranium.
Experts analyzed that at this rate, it could produce an early stage nuclear weapon within a year.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Commissioner Ali Akbar Salehi has announced that it has produced 50 kg of enriched uranium at a concentration of 20 percent, reported by state-run Press TV and semi-governmental Pars news agency.
“We have produced about 50 kg of 20% enriched uranium so far,” through SNS, said, “We plan to increase the production to 120 kg at the end of the year according to the decision of the Congress last year.”
Iran said, “It has fulfilled its obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement (JCPOA, Comprehensive Joint Action Plan), but has not given up any rights,” he added. It.
Iran enriched uranium to 20% before the nuclear agreement was reached, but it diluted it to 3.67% by the nuclear agreement and exported the excess.
When the US broke the nuclear agreement, it raised it to 4.5%.
When nuclear scientist Mosen Parkrizade was assassinated at the end of last year, Iranian parliament passed a bill to raise the level of uranium enrichment to 20 percent.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) cited experts and reported that Iran could build a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
Reportedly, in order to make one nuclear weapon, 25 kg of 90% highly enriched uranium is required, and 200 to 250 kg of 20% enriched uranium must be produced.
David Albright, director of the US think tank Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), argued that Iran could conduct a nuclear bomb test in nine months and build an early-stage nuclear weapon within a year.
In a report released last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had begun enriching uranium using an improved centrifuge type IR-4 at the Natanz underground nuclear facility.
The improved version has a faster enrichment rate than the IR-1 type (with an allowable limit of 5,060 units), which allows enrichment of uranium to a concentration of 3.67% according to the nuclear agreement.
Donald Trump’s U.S. government unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear agreement in May 2018.
Accordingly, from May 2019, the Iranian government phased out the obligation to freeze and reduce nuclear programs set in the nuclear agreement.
The Joe Biden administration, which was launched in January this year, is calling for Iran to abide by all its obligations under the nuclear agreement, even though it will return to the nuclear agreement.
Iran is confronting that the United States will comply with the nuclear agreement only if the United States first lifts economic sanctions against Iran restored by the Trump administration.
(Photo = Provided by Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Yonhap News)