(CNSNews.com) – The head of the Iranian regime’s nuclear agency on Wednesday dismissed as insignificant the amount of uranium that the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said it had found at an Iranian site, enriched to near weapons-grade level.
“The particle cannot be even seen with a microscope,” Iranian state media quoted Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) head Mohammad Eslami as saying.
He was referring to the quantity of uranium that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had tested during an inspection of the regime’s Fordo underground nuclear site in January, and found to be enriched to 83.7 percent purity.
In a quarterly report to member-states, not yet publicly released but leaked to media outlets, the IAEA said it had tested the samples after discovering that two centrifuge cascades at Fordo had been configured differently to Iran’s previous declarations to the agency.
The tests found 83.7 percent enrichment, considerably higher than the 60 percent level that the centrifuges were declared to be producing. Spinning at high speeds, centrifuges enrich uranium to varying degrees, providing fuel for nuclear power plants or, in the case of very high levels of enrichment, producing the core ingredient for an atomic bomb.
Even enriching uranium to 60 percent purity far exceeds the 3.67 percent limit – sufficient for fueling a civilian nuclear power plant – which was set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal. After the Trump administration exited the deal in 2018, Iran began abandoning its commitments in stages.
Weapons-grade uranium is around 90 percent, although according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), uranium enriched to 60 percent “can be used directly in a nuclear explosive.”
A new ISIS estimate Wednesday of Iran’s “breakout” time found that “Iran could have enough weapon-grade uranium for its first nuclear weapon (25 kg) in 12 days, using 60 percent enriched uranium stock.”
That estimate was in line with a comment made by a senior Pentagon official to the House Armed Services Committee a day earlier.
“Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the JCPOA it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl. “Now it would take about 12 days.”
The Biden administration has sought to return to the JCPOA, portraying its predecessor’s withdrawal as a massive blunder. Talks aimed at returning the U.S. and Iran to compliance stalled last fall.
Although Kahl contrasted the current situation with the state of play in 2018, much of Iran’s progress in violating its JCPOA commitments has occurred since President Biden took office. For example, while in January 2021 it was enriching uranium to 20 percent, just three months later it had begun to enrich up to 60 percent, according to a Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) timeline of the regime’s nuclear steps since 2018.
The new IAEA report said Iran told the agency that “‘unintended fluctuations’ in enrichment levels may have occurred” in Fordo during a transition period or when it replaced a feed cylinder (the device through which uranium hexafluoride gas is fed into a centrifuge).
“Discussions between the agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing,” it said, adding that after the discovery of an 83.7 percent enriched uranium sample the agency would step up “the frequency and intensity” of its verification activities at Fordo.
Eslami of the AEOI played down the issue, saying that after IAEA officials visited to review the issues of the centrifuge configuration and the 83.7 percent sample, “it was found that there is no specific deviation.”
‘Not credible’
Some non-proliferation experts were skeptical of the Iranian claims about “unintended fluctuations” in enrichment levels.
“It is unlikely that Tehran’s enrichment levels would have accidentally fluctuated to 84 percent, the FDD said in a brief. “Iran was likely experimenting with higher enrichment that resulted in no stockpile of the material.”
“Iran’s explanation that it unintentionally produced near atomic-weapons grade uranium is not credible,” said Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the FDD’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program.
“Tehran was likely experimenting with higher enrichment and was caught red-handed,” she said. “The West must act immediately to deter Iran from going further and stockpiling this material.”
“In today’s report, the IAEA makes clear that it’s not satisfied yet about Iran’s answer on making 84% enriched uranium at Fordow,” ISIS tweeted. “One possibility we are considering is that Iran deliberately let the enrichment level rise & diluted the product, figuring the IAEA would not notice.”
“Another possibility, although more extreme and less likely, is that Iran secretly inserted a very small product cylinder and extracted a small amount of 84%, removed that cylinder, before returning to 60% production. But in any case, Iran may have tampered with the operations.”
The IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors is scheduled to meet on Monday in Vienna, where the latest Iran developments will be on the agenda.
Jackie Wolcott, who served as U.S. permanent representative to the IAEA during the Trump administration, said the board must act firmly against Iran.
“The Biden administration’s misguided Iran policy has allowed Tehran to approach the nuclear threshold with impunity,” said Wolcott, who now chairs the FDD’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program.
“When the IAEA’s board of governors meets next week, it should vote to censure Iran’s latest provocation and refer the case to the U.N. Security Council, where the West should snap back multilateral Iran sanctions,” she said.
Calls for a board vote and referral to the Security Council also came from House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
“Iran has tested our patience for far too long and must be held to account for its ongoing intransigence in order to maintain the integrity of the IAEA as an international organization,” he wrote in a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.