Dubai:
Iran stated on Wednesday it could enrich uranium up to 90% purity — weapons grade — if its nuclear reactors required it, but added it nonetheless sought the revival of a 2015 deal that would limit its atomic activities in return for a lifting of sanctions.
“Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation can enrich uranium by 20% and 60% and if one day our reactor needs it, it can enrich uranium to 90% purity,” President Hassan Rouhani told a cabinet meeting, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
The nuclear deal caps the fissile purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67%, effectively below the 20% accomplished prior to the agreement and far beneath the 90% appropriate for a nuclear weapon. Iran has extended denied any intention of creating nuclear weapons.
Iran has been breaching the deal in various methods immediately after the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018, like by generating 20% and 60% enriched uranium.
Rouhani, who will hand more than the presidency to hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi on Aug. 5, implicitly criticised Iran’s leading choice makers for “not allowing” his government to revive the nuclear deal in the course of its term in workplace.
“They took away the opportunity to reach an agreement from this government. We are sorry to miss this opportunity,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the president, has the last say on all state matters such as nuclear policy.
Like Khamenei, Raisi has backed indirect talks amongst Tehran and Washington, which began on April 9 in Vienna aimed at bringing back the arch foes into complete compliance with the accord. Washington quit the deal 3 years ago, saying it was biased in favour of Iran, and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
The talks in Vienna adjourned on June 20 and no date has been set however for the next round of the negotiations. Iranian and Western officials have stated that important gaps nonetheless stay to be resolved.
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