Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reviews Iran’s new nuclear achievements during Iran’s National Nuclear Power Day in Tehran, Iran, on April 10, 2021.
Office of the Iranian Presidency | RT
Iran said Saturday it has begun mechanical testing on its new advanced nuclear centrifuge, even as the five world powers that remain in a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran try to get the United States back on track.
Iran’s IR-9 centrifuge, when operational, would have the ability to separate uranium isotopes more quickly than current centrifuges used, thus enriching uranium at a faster rate. The announcement aired on state television came on Iran’s 15th “Nuclear Day”.
The exit of the IR-9 is 50 times faster than the first Iranian centrifuge, the IR-1. The country also announced that it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges on Saturday and is also developing IR-8 centrifuges.
Since January, Iran has begun enriching uranium with 20% purity, a technical step beyond weapons levels, although Iranian leadership insists the country has no desire to develop a nuclear weapon.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018, accusing Iran of not complying with the deal and opted for what he called a campaign of maximum pressure from U.S. sanctions intensified and other difficult actions.
Iran responded by intensifying uranium enrichment and building centrifuges in clear violation of the agreement, insisting that its nuclear development has civilian and non-military purposes.
Israel maintains that Iran still maintains its ambition to develop nuclear weapons, noting Tehran’s ballistic missile program and research into other technologies.
Iran denies that it is looking for nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program has peaceful purposes.
Iran’s 20% enriched uranium storage has reached 55 kilograms (121 pounds), bringing its nuclear program closer to arms quality enrichment levels. The amount of material was 17 kilograms in January.
Iran has installed 1,000 IR2 centrifugal machines and a cascade of 164 IR4 machines. Both are in operation and have more speed than IR1 machines.
Since late February, Iran has failed to comply with a confidential agreement with the UN nuclear watchdog reached as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. The International Atomic Energy Agency has additional protocols with several countries it controls.
According to the protocol with Iran, the IAEA “collects and analyzes hundreds of thousands of images captured daily by its sophisticated surveillance cameras,” the agency said in 2017. The agency also said then that it had collected · Placed “2,000 tamper-proof seals on nuclear material and equipment”.
However, the Iranian parliament passed a law in December that required the government to limit its cooperation with the IAEA and push its nuclear program beyond the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal. become law, Iran began to enrich uranium up to 20% purity and to centrifuge advanced centrifuges, both prohibited by the agreement.
Iran argues that the U.S. exit from the nuclear deal was the first violation of the deal by either county, so the U.S. must take the first step and remove sanctions before Iran returns. to fulfill it.
President Joe Biden took office saying that agreeing again and recovering Iran’s nuclear program under international restrictions was a priority. But Iran and the United States have disagreed with Iran’s demands that sanctions be lifted first. This blockade has threatened to become a first setback in foreign policy for the new US president.
Talks in Vienna aimed at returning the United States to the deal with Iran broke down on Friday with no immediate signs of progress on issues dividing Washington and Tehran.
However, delegates spoke of a constructive atmosphere and decided to continue the discussions.