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.

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Stating that Iran has extensive activities in exploration and extraction, Salehi said, “Until three or four years ago, we used to produce an average of 4 to 5 tons of yellowcake, but now, for about two years, we have increased the production of yellowcake to 30 tons.”

“This year, the production of yellowcake will be between 35 and 40 tons, which means that we have increased the production of yellowcake 8 times,” he added.

“We were able to achieve 20% uranium enrichment technically within 24 hours after International Atomic Energy Agency’s formalities,” Salehi noted.

“We can produce about 17 to 20 grams of enrichment per hour,” he added.

Stating that Iran can produce about 8 to 9 kg per month to reach 120 kg in line with the implementation of the Parliament’s motion on ‘strategic action to lift sanctions’, AEOI chief highlighted, “You see that Iran has produced 20% enriched uranium in 24 hours.”

“We are currently installing a thousand IR-2m centrifuges, but 2 cascades are installed and working. We proceed according to the law and install these centrifuges even earlier than the legal deadline,” he said.

AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi also said that Iran has produced its first UF6 (uranium hexafluoride or hex) product a few hours after restarting the enrichment of uranium up to a purity level of 20 percent at the Fordow nuclear facility.

Kamalvandi announced late Monday that the first UF6 product was prepared a few hours ago.

The process of injecting gas into the centrifuges and resuming uranium enrichment up to 20% started earlier in the day after informing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the spokesman said.

“Considering the previous experience of enrichment in Fordow facility, the new production line for enriching uranium to 20% was prepared very quickly,” Kamalvandi said.

He also noted that the country is prepared to enrich uranium at purity levels beyond 20 percent.

Meanwhile, on Monday Iran’s ambassador to international organizations in Vienna says the UN nuclear watchdog has certified in a report that Iran has started to enrich uranium to a purity level of 20 percent.

In comments on Monday, Kazem Gharibabadi said the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed in a report that Iran has begun to enrich uranium up to a purity level of 20 percent.

The envoy said the report came after Iran provided the IAEA with an amendment to the Design Information Questionnaire (DIQ) for Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) where the IAEA inspectors visited on Monday morning to verify the information and to break seals on a cylinder containing uranium enriched to 4.1 percent.

The UN nuclear agency’s report declares that the IAEA inspectors have removed the seal on a 137.2 kg cylinder containing 4.1% uranium, the cylinder has been connected to the production line, and the enrichment of uranium up to purity level of 20% has begun, Gharibabadi added.

The envoy noted that the resumption of 20% uranium enrichment in Iran follows a letter that Tehran sent to the IAEA on December 31, 2020, saying the UN nuclear agency had been notified that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has plans to enrich uranium to 20% purity level in compliance with a bill recently ratified by the Iranian Parliament.

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On the ion therapy center, the Iran nuclear chief hoped that the hospital would be inaugurated within next five years.

He pointed out that the work on building two nuclear power plants, which started two years ago with an estimated cost of $ 10 billion, will continue.

Salehi further rejected the claims that Iran stopped its nuclear industry after signing JCPOA, noting “I would like to explicitly tell the people that we will continue our movement towards fulfilling our nuclear objectives and we have never stopped and will never stop in the future.”

Elsewhere, he said that the nuclear agency used to produce 10 tons of uranium for years, while the volume amounted to 30 tons last year.

Salehi emphasized that production of uranium may increase to 50 tons if the current trend continues.

He further noted that Iran installed 20 IR6 centrifuges in the first month of this Iranian year (March 22-April 22, 2019) despite the Europeans’ protest.

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