FPI / February 23, 2023
Geostrategy-Direct
Iran has reached the point where it is close to weapons-grade uranium enrichment at 90 percent, according to international atomic monitors cited in reports by Reuters and Bloomberg.
The monitors earlier this month detected uranium enriched to levels of 84 percent, the reports said.
The Islamic Republic had been understood to be enriching uranium at 60 percent.
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, in a public interview on Feb. 20 conducted by The Jerusalem Post’s Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, warned “it is now or never,” to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state.
Iran’s production of high-enriched uranium at its Fordow facility carries significant proliferation-related risks and is reportedly without any credible civilian justification, critics say.
Fordow is in fact so sensitive that the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers banned enrichment there.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Feb. 1 criticized Iran for making an undeclared change to the interconnection between the two clusters of advanced machines enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to weapons grade, at its Fordow plant.
Since the United States pulled out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions against Iran, the Islamic Republic has breached many of the deal's restrictions on its nuclear activities.
Critics say Iran also has not yet to offer credible answers to the IAEA’s questions on safeguards at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The fact that Teheran has enriched uranium at 84 percent, which is only used for weapons production, leaves no doubt as to its motives, Hanegbi said.
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