i24NEWS
March 09, 2021, 03:53 AM
JOE KLAMAR / AFPThe Iranian national flag creases outside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters during the agency’s Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on March 1, 2021.
IAEA says, “Iran has started introducing natural UF6 into a third cascade of 174 centrifuges” at Natanz
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told its member states late Monday that Iran has started enriching uranium with a third set of advanced IR-2m centrifuges at its underground plant in Natanz, in a further violation of the Vienna agreement concluded in 2015.
“On March 7, 2021, the agency found that Iran had started introducing natural UF6 into a third cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges,” the IAEA said in a report that Reuters obtained.
UF6, uranium hexafluoride, is a compound that can be introduced into centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel.
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“The fourth cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges has been installed but has not yet been supplied with natural UF6; the installation of a fifth cascade of IR-2m centrifuges is underway; and the installation of a sixth IR-2m centrifuge cascade has not yet started,” the report added.
The Islamic Republic is now using some 522 IR-2m centrifuges to enrich uranium with up to five percent fissile material within the Natanz nuclear complex, the United Nations nuclear watchdog explained.
Critically, that five percent exceeds the 3.67 percent permitted according to the deal, but still significantly less than the 20 percent enrichment at the Fordow nuclear plant, which Iran.
Uranium that has been enriched to 90 percent can be used to make an atomic weapon.
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Content retrieved from: https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/1615279202-iran-enriching-uranium-with-advanced-centrifuges-in-further-nuclear-agreement-breach.