The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran defended the legitimacy of its latest step to accelerate uranium enrichment by 20 percent through operating IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility.
Iran has escalated its uranium enrichment further with the use of advanced machines at Fordow in a setup that can more easily change between enrichment levels, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report on Saturday seen by Reuters.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said uranium enriched to 20 percent was collected for the first time from advanced IR-6 centrifuges on Saturday. He said Iran had informed the UN nuclear watchdog about the development two weeks ago.
The IR-6 centrifuges have already produced uranium enriched to purity of 20 percent, Kamalvandi stated.
He added that what the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has done is in line with its legitimate responsibility to launch and power 1,000 (six cascades) of IR6 centrifuges.
"On 7 July 2022, Iran informed the Agency that, on the same day, it had begun feeding the aforementioned cascade with UF6 enriched up to 5 percent U-235," the confidential report to IAEA member states said.
Iran had previously told the IAEA that it was preparing to enrich uranium through a new cascade of 166 advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow facility. But it hadn’t revealed the level at which the cascade would be enriching.
Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers had called for Fordow to become a research-and-development facility and restricted centrifuges there to non-nuclear uses.
The IAEA reported in April that Iran has uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a short step to 90 percent.
Iran said it was working to enrich uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, a level well beyond the 3.67 percent agreed under the 2015 deal.
