Iran Acknowledges Claim It Enriched Uranium to 84% Purity
Iran on Thursday acknowledged accusations by international inspectors that it has enriched uranium to 84% purity, in a news outlet directly linked to the regime’s most senior leaders. Weapons-grade uranium requires 90% purity.
The acknowledgement of the higher enrichment claim came through Nour News, a website linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Associated Press reported.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, discovered uranium enriched to 84% purity during a visit to Iran last week, Bloomberg said, citing two unnamed senior diplomats.
In the wake of the report, the IAEA said it was in discussions with Iran about the detection of the uranium. Until the most recent inspection, Iran was only known to have enriched uranium to 60% purity, which has been doing since April 2021.
The IAEA now is working to determine if the higher enrichment level is an “unintended accumulation within the network of pipes connecting the hundreds of fast-spinning centrifuges used to separate the isotopes,” according to Bloomberg.
It is not known where the more highly enriched uranium was discovered.
