(YAHOO) – Iran has accelerated the rate at which it’s enriching low-grade uranium four-fold, weeks after threatening to gradually scale back its commitments under a 2015 deal meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb. The semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi, an official at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as saying that Iran had increased its output of 3.67% enriched uranium as of Monday and that the United Nations nuclear watchdog had been informed. The number of active centrifuges has not been raised, it added.
Crucially, Iran hasn’t increased the level to which it is enriching beyond the agreed limit. “This issue does not mean that there is an increase in the purity of the material or that there’s an increase in the number of centrifuge machines or that there’s a change in the type of centrifuges,” Kamalvandi said, according to the Tasmin. Tehran has already announced it stopped complying with a 300-kilogram cap on the storage of enriched uranium and heavy water imposed by the multilateral accord and said it would abandon limits on uranium enrichment unless Europe throws it an economic lifeline within 60 days .. FULL REPORT
