TEHRAN: Iran said on Friday it has begun producing uranium at 60 per cent purity, in another breach of its commitments to the international community which is concerned about its nuclear programme.

According to AFP, the Islamic republic had declared it would sharply ramp up its enrichment of uranium on Tuesday, two days after an attack on its Natanz nuclear facility that it blamed on arch-foe Israel.

The incidents cast a shadow over talks in Vienna aimed at salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that then US president Donald Trump abandoned almost three years ago.

According to AP, Israel’s foreign minister said on Friday that his country was determined to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, after Tehran promised to step up its uranium enrichment process.

“We will do whatever it takes to prevent the extremists (in Iran) from succeeding, and definitely will prevent this regime from having a nuclear weapon,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters on a visit to Cyprus.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, confirmed Iran was now producing uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity, taking the country closer to the 90pc level required for use in a nuclear weapon.

Israel says it will ‘definitely’ stop Iran from getting N-bomb

“The enrichment of uranium to 60pc is under way at the Martyr Ahmadi Roshan nuclear facility” in Natanz, he said, quoted by Tasnim news agency.

“We are now getting nine grams (almost a third of an ounce) per hour,” Salehi said later on state television.

Iran has repeatedly insisted it is not seeking an atomic bomb, but at that rate of production, it could take the Islamic republic 322 days to produce the amount of 60pcenriched uranium needed in any later step to make one bomb, based on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s criteria.

But this would require Iran to have a sufficient amount of 20pc enriched uranium, which it does not have, according to the latest IAEA data.

Tehran has gradually rolled back its nuclear commitments since 2019, a year after Washington withdrew from the accord and began imposing sanctions.

The 2015 deal known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Under the accord, Iran had committed to keep enrichment to 3.67pc, though it had stepped this up to 20pc in January.

Negotiations aimed at ensuring the return of the United States to the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions resumed this week in Vienna.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted after the latest round of talks on Thursday that the “general impression is positive”.

The head of the Iranian delegation, Abbas Araghchi, was more cautious at the end of the meeting.

Araghchi stressed Iran wanted to avoid the talks “dragging on” and that they had to “take place in a well-defined framework and within an acceptable time period”.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2021