IRAN is speeding up its nuclear programme as attempts to resuscitate the 2015 accord broken by former US President Donald Trump fail to make progress.
Mechanical tests have begun on an advanced nuclear centrifuge as talks aimed at bringing the US back on board reached a stalemate in Vienna.
The IR-9 centrifuge has the potential to speed up the enrichment of uranium, bringing it closer to weapons-grade levels.
The announcement was made on Iran state TV on the country’s annual Nuclear Day.
The country’s leaders say there are no plans to develop nuclear weapons, although Israel claims Tehran’s ballistic missiles programme and technological research prove this is not the case.
The 2015 nuclear accord drawn up by the world’s superpowers was broken by Trump in 2018 who maintained Iran was not abiding by the agreement. US sanctions were stepped up and Iran responded by building centrifuges and stockpiling enriched uranium.
It now has 55kg, a rise from 17kg in January.
A total of 1000 IR-2 centrifuges have been installed along with one cascade of 164 IR-4 machines. It is also developing IR-8 machines. Output from the IR-9 is 50 times speedier than the IR-1, the country’s first centrifuge.
The country’s parliament has also passed a bill to cease cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and advance its nuclear programme beyond the limits of the 2015 accord.
Enriching uranium up to 20% purity and spinning advanced centrifuges were both ruled out by the deal and under the protocol the IAEA was supposed to collect and analyse hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras.
The agency said in 2017 that it had installed “2000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment”.
Iran insists the US was the first to abandon the agreement and must make the first move to make amends by removing the crippling sanctions.
The US says some of the sanctions imposed by Trump after January 2016 when the protocol came into force could be said to be non-nuclear related and so need not be lifted.
Hackers backed by Iran were sanctioned last year as were three judges and three of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation deputy directors involved in its ballistic missile programme.
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