Tehran Denies Report That It Is Enriching Uranium to Near Weapons Grade 84%

Tehran is denying a report that United Nations nuclear watchdog inspectors discovered during a visit to Iran last week uranium enriched to 84% purity, which is near weapons grade. “So far, we have not made any attempt to enrich above 60%. The presence of particles above 60% enrichment does not mean production with an enrichment above 60%,” Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Monday, according to the official IRNA News agency. He was responding to a report on Sunday by Bloomberg, 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 84% enriched uranium. Until this recent inspection, Iran was only known to have enriched uranium to 60% purity; Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60% purity since April 2021.  Weapons-grade uranium requires 90% purity. 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 the report. It is not known where the higher-enriched uranium was discovered.