At what point do blinders become treason?
[JPost] While the amount of enriched uranium extracted is small, it amounts to a fresh breach at a delicate stage, as the US and Iran hold indirect talks in Vienna regarding a renegotiation of the deal.
The UN atomic watchdog on Friday flagged a new breach by Iran of its nuclear deal with major powers on the day those powers met to revive the agreement , a report by the agency seen by Reuters showed, likely raising tensions with Western powers.
The International Atomic Energy Agency avoids saying Iran has breached the deal. At the same time, it generally only issues such ad hoc reports to member states in the event of a breach. Two diplomats told Reuters what the report described amounted to a fresh breach.
The breach has to do with what counts officially towards Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, a highly sensitive issue since that stockpile could be enriched further to weapons-grade material suitable for nuclear bombs if Iran chose to do so. It denies seeking such weapons and says its aims are entirely peaceful.
After the deal was reached in 2015 the parties to it defined what should count towards the stockpile, and excluded items such as scrap fuel plates with uranium enriched to near 20% fissile purity, which were deemed "unrecoverable." Friday's report, however, said Iran had recovered some of that material.
"On 7 April 2021, the Agency verified at the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant at Esfahan that Iran had dissolved six unirradiated scrap fuel plates for the TRR (Tehran Research Reactor) containing 0.43 kg of uranium enriched up to 20% U-235," the report said.
"A uranyl nitrate solution was extracted and converted into ammonium uranyl carbonate," the report said, adding that Iran aimed to process that further to produce molybdenum, which has many civilian uses including in medical imaging.
While the amount of enriched uranium extracted is small, it amounts to a fresh breach at a delicate stage, since Tehran and the United States are holding indirect talks in Vienna on how they could fully return to the deal.
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