UN atomic watchdog says Iran expanding enrichment capacity

VIENNA, Austria – Iran is further expanding its nuclear capacities, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday, one week after the agency’s board of governors passed a resolution criticizing Tehran’s lack of cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

The IAEA informed its members that Tehran told it that it was installing more cascades at the enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordo, according to a statement sent to AFP.

A diplomatic source deemed this development as “moderate.”

A cascade is a series of centrifuges, which are machines used in the process of enriching uranium.

Britain, France and Germany brought forth a motion demanding Iran better cooperate with the watchdog at the IAEA’s 35-nation board last week, the first of its kind since November 2022. China and Russia opposed the measure.

Illustrative: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (front) visits an exhibition of the country’s nuclear industry achievements in Tehran, June 11, 2023, accompanied by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami (L). (Khamenei.ir/AFP)

Although symbolic in nature at this stage, the censure motion aims to raise diplomatic pressure on Iran, with the option to potentially refer the issue to the UN Security Council.

In the past, similar resolutions have prompted Tehran to retaliate by removing surveillance cameras and other equipment from its nuclear facilities and ratcheting up its uranium enrichment activities.

According to the IAEA, Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state to enrich uranium to the high level of 60 percent, just short of weapons-grade, while it keeps accumulating large uranium stockpiles.

The IAEA has said that Tehran has significantly ramped up its nuclear program and now has enough material to build several atomic bombs — if enriched to weapons-grade purity.

The Islamic Republic has gradually broken away from its commitments under the nuclear deal it struck with world powers in 2015.

The landmark deal provided Iran with relief from Western sanctions in exchange for curbs on its atomic program, but it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States under then-president Donald Trump in 2018.

Efforts to revive the deal have so far failed.