Iran has started the process to enrich uranium to 20%

January 4, 2021

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Le nucléaire iranien fera encore débat en 2021

Iranian nuclear power will still be debated in 2021 – Vahid Salemi / AP / SIPA

Iran has initiated the process to produce

uranium enriched at % in the Fordo underground plant, well above the threshold set by the international agreement of 2015, State television said on Monday citing the spokesperson e government.

“The process to produce enriched uranium at % started at Shahid Alimohammadi (Fordo) enrichment complex ”, located at 120 kilometers south of Tehran, spokesman Ali Rabii said as quoted on the state television website.

120 kilograms per year

In a letter dated 20 December Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its desire to produce enriched uranium at 20%. According to the latest report available from the UN agency, published in November, Tehran was enriching uranium to a degree of purity higher than the limit provided for by the agreement of 2015 (3, 67%) but did not exceed the threshold of 4.5%, and still comply with the regime very strict Agency inspections.

But the case has been experiencing turmoil since the assassination at the end of November of an Iranian nuclear physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. In the aftermath of this attack attributed by Iran to Israel, the Iranian Parliament passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of at least 67 kilograms per year of uranium enriched at % ”and“ end ”the inspections of

IAEA , intended to verify that the country not trying to acquire the atomic bomb.

The Vienna agreements seem more and more distant

The Iranian government was opposed to this initiative denounced by the other signatories of the agreement of 310, who had called in December Tehran not to “compromise the future ”.

From of May 2015, Iran had already started to fret hir the main commitments made within the framework of the Vienna agreement intended to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against it.

This disengagement began a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from these agreements, followed by the return of heavy American sanctions which deprived Iran of the expected fallout from the agreement.