Iran: process started to enrich uranium to 20%

The process to produce 20% enriched uranium began Monday at the Fordo underground plant in Iran. This is the main disengagement measure from the 2015 international agreement, which is supposed to limit Iran’s nuclear program. In May 2019, a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from this agreement followed by the return of heavy American sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran began to break away from its main commitments, among which the rate limit. enrichment of uranium.

Accused by several Western countries and Israel of wanting to acquire atomic weapons, Iran has always denied. “The process to produce 20% enriched uranium has started at the Shahid Alimohammadi (Fordo) enrichment complex,” located 180 kilometers south of Tehran, spokesman Ali Rabii said, according to whom the Iranian president Hassan Rohani gave the order “in recent days”. “The gas injection process started a few hours ago,” he added.

Controversial law passed in Iran

On December 31, Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of its desire to produce uranium enriched to 20%, a level practiced before the conclusion of the Vienna agreement. According to the latest report available from the UN agency, published in November, Tehran enriched uranium to a degree of purity higher than the limit provided for in the 2015 agreement (3.67%) but did not exceed 4.5% threshold. The country still complied with the very strict IAEA inspection regime. The case has nevertheless experienced turmoil following the assassination at the end of November near Tehran of an Iranian nuclear physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

In the aftermath of this attack attributed by Iran to Israel, the conservative Iranian parliament passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of “at least 120 kilograms per year of 20% enriched uranium” and ” put an end ”to the IAEA inspections, intended to verify that the country is not seeking to acquire an atomic bomb. The government of moderate President Rohani had opposed this initiative denounced by the other parties to the 2015 agreement, who had called in December Tehran not to “compromise the future”. This agreement was reached after years of bitter negotiations between Iran, the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany.

The deal can still be “saved”

The Constitutional Guardian Council, which arbitrates in disputes between the government and parliament in Iran, approved the law in December and several officials, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, had indicated that the government would comply with its rule. decision. On Monday, Ali Rabii added that the government’s position with regard to this law remained the same “but that he considered himself obliged to implement it”. From May 2019, Iran had already started to free itself from the main commitments made under the Vienna agreement intended to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of part of the international sanctions against it. .

This disengagement began a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from this agreement and the American sanctions which deprived Iran of the expected fallout from the pact. The announcement of the resumption of 20% enrichment comes a few weeks before President Donald Trump’s departure from the White House, who has led a campaign of “maximum pressure against Iran”. The arrival of President-elect Joe Biden raises hopes for a rescue of the pact. But a possible dismissal of the IAEA inspectors and the resumption of enrichment activities to the tune of 20% would risk sending the Iranian nuclear issue back to the UN Security Council and definitively torpedoing this text, according to the authorities. observers.