Iran to Exceed Limit on Low-Enriched Uranium July 7
Iran to Exceed Limit on Low-Enriched Uranium July 7
(Bloomberg) -- Iran will exceed agreed limits on its inventories of low-enriched uranium on July 7, potentially breaching for the first time a landmark 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
The spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, also said the country would step up the pace of enrichment after that deadline. Crucially, Iran hasn’t said it will increase the purity to which it is enriching beyond the 3.67% cap set in the nuclear deal.
The televised announcement comes amid heightened friction with the U.S., which has accused the Islamic Republic of being behind a spate of attacks on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz shipping chokepoint. Iran has denied any wrongdoing.
Tensions in the Gulf have spiked since the U.S. stopped granting waivers to buyers of Iranian oil in early May, tightening sanctions slapped on the Islamic Republic after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal a year ago.
Iran responded by threatening on May 8 to gradually withdraw from the multilateral accord unless the remaining parties throw it an economic lifeline within a rapidly-approaching 60-day deadline. It said it would no longer comply with a 300-kilogram cap on the storage of enriched uranium and heavy water imposed by the deal and has since accelerated four-fold the rate at which it is enriching low-grade uranium.
Kamalvandi said European parties to the deal still had time to save it but the deadline would not be extended. If Europe gives the Iranians a way to maintain access to international oil and financial markets, Iran has promised to resume complying fully.
Inspectors from the global nuclear watchdog say Iran so far remains in compliance with the nuclear deal. Its inventories of those sensitive materials have remained below the permitted thresholds, according to a restricted report by International Atomic Agency monitors which was seen by Bloomberg News on May 31.
Iran has said it is not seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
To contact the reporter on this story: Golnar Motevalli in Tehran at gmotevalli@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Tarek El-Tablawy
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