Iran Pledges Nuclear Cooperation After Uranium Enrichment Exposed
Iran on Saturday pledged to cooperate with the United Nations atomic watchdog following concerns the country was enriching uranium to 84% purity, just shy of the levels needed to make a nuclear bomb.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the head of the Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami in Tehran on Saturday.
Grossi said after the visit that Iran has agreed to replace cameras and other monitoring equipment that it disabled at its nuclear sites and step up the number of international inspections of those locations.
The IAEA said last week that it had detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7% at Iran’s Frodo subterranean nuclear site. Nuclear weapons require uranium enriched to 90% purity.
The Reuters news agency, which saw the IAEA report on the matter, quoted the Iranian government as saying that the highly enriched particles could be caused by “unintended fluctuations in enrichment levels may have occurred during transition period at the time of commissioning the process of [60%] product or while replacing the feed cylinder.”
Joint statement by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – 4 March, 2023
🔗https://t.co/i42W42OOmK pic.twitter.com/6vc9I5m5oU
— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) March 4, 2023
