TEHRAN IRAN (CU)_ In shocking news we see that a day after the one year anniversary of the USA forces killing of the top Iranian general Qasam Solemini, Iran has announced they will restart the programme to enrich their uranium up to 20% purity which is a lot more than agreed to on the deal signed in 2015.
This move by Iran will only cause more tension with the United States after adding to it by seizing a South Korean flagged tanker on Monday. President Trump does not help in easing the tension when he reversed his decision made a few days ago to get the air craft carrier removed from the Middle East.
In the pact signed for the enrichment of uranium the cap was set at 3.67% Iran does not abide by this limit and has been enriching its uranium up to 4.5% and is done so in stockpile, this being states it is far less than the 90% that is considered as weapon grade. Although Iran has always denied that they plan to put together nuclear weaponry, a spoke person from the Iranian government stated that the enrichments have begun in their underground Fordow nuclear facility.
Iran kept the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) of the plan to enrich the Uranium stated Fredrick Dhen who is an IAEA spokesman. On Monday the enrichment process was commenced in the Fordow site and was confirmed by government spokesperson Ali Rabiei.
While the US state department condemned the action taken by Iran to enrich their uranium a government spokesperson claimed that “Iran’s enrichment program was originally developed in secret, including at Fordow, and Iran retained a vast archive of records from its past nuclear weapons program, along with many of the key personnel who led that program. The United States and the rest of the international community will assess Iran’s actions in light of this provocative history,”
Whilst Trump walked away from the agreement in 2018 Joe Biden has pledged to reinstate it during his time in office. The Iranian parliament decided to pass the bill to boost uranium enrichment after the assassination of Iran’s chief scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November.
In January 2020 it was stated by the Iranian president Hassan Rouheni that Iran was enriching a lot more uranium than in the originally signed deal. Although Rouheni’s 2015 government then signed the deal with the world super powers, he opposed last month’s bill stating that it would erode diplomacy and he has called on the US government many times to reinstate the agreement that Trump walked away from.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor states that the USA is willing to come back to the agreement if Iran will also agree to follow its rules and regulation. Rouheni whilst happy to come back to the agreement declares that Iran’s Missile programme is not up for negotiations.
