Iran Ahead of Schedule in Producing 20% Enriched Uranium

TEHRAN (Iran News) – “I now give the glad tidings to the dear people of our country that regarding the 120 kg of 20-percent [uranium] enrichment per year, [Iranian] experts have been able to enrich 17 kg in less than a month. That means we are ahead of the schedule,” Qalibaf said on Thursday.

He made the remarks during a visit to the Fordow enrichment facility, which has been renamed after assassinated nuclear scientist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi and AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi accompanied Qalibaf during his visit.

Qalibaf said the installation of IR-2m centrifuges is also underway, with a number of centrifuges already installed and the rest being installed.

Iran and the P5+1 group – the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany – reached an agreement in 2015 on Tehran’s nuclear program. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit some aspects of its nuclear activities in exchange for a sanctions relief.

Early in January, Tehran announced the beginning of the process to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity at Fordow in a tit-for-tat move against the US withdrawal and the European countries’ failure to protect Iran’s interests.

“The P5+1 failed to comply with its obligations within the framework of the JCPOA,” said Qalibaf. “Therefore, we have no duty whatsoever to fulfill the enshrined obligations.”

He said Iran will honor its commitment once the P5+1 countries begin to honor theirs and lift sanctions that have targeted Iran’s oil and banking sectors. “Iran Ahead of Schedule in Producing 20% Enriched Uranium”

The parliament speaker also said the country’s nuclear industry has taken a big step in lifting and nullifying the U.S. sanctions.

“If the enemy does not want [our] country to have this technology, it is because they are upset about the existence of a strong and vigilant Iran,” he noted.

The spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, for his part, announced that the country’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent has reached 17 kilograms.

“A small part of Iran’s nuclear activities is based at the Fordow nuclear site, and the enrichment facility is nearly one-seventh of the Natanz nuclear site [in terms of size],” Kamalvandi said, according to IRNA.

The spokesman explained that according to a new law passed by the parliament, namely the Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions, the AEOI will install 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges within a three-month period.”Iran Ahead of Schedule in Producing 20% Enriched Uranium”

Early last month, Iranian parliamentarians overwhelmingly voted in favor of the action plan, which tasked the Iranian administration with suspending more commitments under the JCPOA until the other parties lift the sanctions.

The new law tasked the AEOI with producing at least 120 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium annually and starting the installation, gas injection, enrichment and storage of nuclear materials up to an appropriate enrichment degree within a period of three months using at least 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Kamalvandi said with the continuation of the current process, in the next eight years, two more nuclear power plants will become operational, each of which will save oil consumption between 12 to 14 million barrels on a daily basis.

He also said the enemies cannot impose their will on the Iranian people.

“If it was left to their choice, they would have eliminated every nut and bolt of Iran’s nuclear program,” said Kamalvandi, in remarks reminiscent of former US President Barack Obama’s comments back in 2013.