Iran announced on Saturday the commissioning of new cascades of modernized centrifuges that enrich uranium more quickly and whose use is prohibited under the terms of the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015.
The announcements come as discussions are taking place in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the other states party to the 2015 agreement (Germany, China, France, Great Britain and Russia) on how to reintegrate the United States into the of this pact concluded in the Austrian capital.
On Friday, a US official said on condition of anonymity that Washington had indirectly made “very serious” proposals to Iran to revive the deal and that the Americans expected some “reciprocity” from the United States. Islamic Republic.
The measures announced with fanfare on Saturday by the Iranian executive do not go in this direction. President Hassan Rohani officially inaugurated a line of 164 so-called IR-6 centrifuges and another of 30 IR-5, installed in the Natanz nuclear complex (central Iran), during a videoconference ceremony broadcast by state television.
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“Please start the operation to supply (uranium) gas from the (cascade) of new generation centrifuges to the Natanz enrichment complex,” said the president. State television did not broadcast images of these waterfalls, but engineers in white coats working in duplex confirmed the commissioning of this line of centrifuges.
Dying agreement
The Vienna agreement has been dying since the United States unilaterally walked out of it three years later in 2018, under President Donald Trump, restoring an avalanche of economic and financial sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran began to break away from its commitments from May 2019, and the pace has accelerated in recent months.
New US President Joe Biden has declared that he is ready to re-enter the agreement, and therefore to lift the sanctions after negotiations. For its part, Iran says it is ready to return to the full and complete application of the text, on condition that the United States first lift all the sanctions it has reimposed or imposed against Tehran since 2018. Tehran refuses also to discuss directly with the United States at this stage.
The IR-5 and IR-6 centrifuges enrich uranium faster and in greater quantities than the “first generation” IR-1 centrifuges, the only centrifuges that the Vienna Agreement allows Iran to use. . Mr. Rohani repeated during this ceremony organized for the “National Day of Nuclear Technology” that the nuclear program of his country was purely “peaceful”.
So far, the exchanges which took place this week in Vienna between Iran and its partners on a relaunch of the agreement have been deemed “productive” by the European Union, which coordinates the discussions. According to Russia, in order to “maintain the positive momentum”, diplomats from countries still parties to the Vienna agreement “will meet again next week” in the Austrian capital. According to Tehran, this meeting is to take place on Wednesday, at the level of deputy foreign ministers.
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Iran announced on Saturday the commissioning of new cascades of modernized centrifuges to enrich uranium more quickly and whose use it is prohibited under the terms of the Iranian nuclear agreement of 2015. that discussions are taking place in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the other states parties to the 2015 agreement …
