60% Enriched Uranium’s Stockpile at 6.5kg…..
Iran has made 6.5 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60%, the government spokesman said on Tuesday.
Ali Rabiei said the country had also produced 108 kg of uranium enriched to 20% purity, indicating quicker output than the rate required by the Iranian law that created the process.
Iran said in April it would begin enriching uranium to 60% purity, a move that would take the uranium much closer to the 90% suitable for a nuclear bomb, after Tehran accused arch-foe Israel of sabotaging a key nuclear site.
Tehran says its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes and denies any military aspect to its activities. It says it needs 60% enriched uranium for medical applications.
Tuesday’s disclosure came as Tehran and Washington hold indirect talks in Vienna aimed at finding ways to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
Iran’s parliament passed a law last year to oblige the government to harden its nuclear stance, partly in reaction to former US president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018.
Trump’s withdrawal and the reimposition of US sanctions prompted Iran to steadily overstep the accord’s limits on its nuclear program.
“Under parliament’s law…, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was supposed to produce 120 kg of 20% enriched uranium in a year. According to the latest report, we now have produced 108 kg of 20% uranium in the past five months,” Rabiei said, ISNA reported.
“In the area of 60% uranium production, in the short time that has elapsed…, about 6.5 kg has been produced,” Rabiei added.
A quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear activities by the UN nuclear watchdog in May said that, as of May 22, Tehran had produced 62.8 kg of uranium enriched up to 20%, and 2.4 kg of uranium enriched up to 60%, with the next level down being enriched to between 2% and 5%.
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