Iran breaches key uranium enrichment limit in nuclear deal, UN watchdog confirms

Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to 4.5 per cent, just breaking the limit set by its nuclear deal with world powers, while still seeking a way for Europe to help it bypass U.S. sanctions amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, confirmed Iran surpassed the enrichment threshold.The Vienna-based IAEA didn't specify how much beyond the 3.67 per cent threshold Iran is enriching uranium.

Uranium enriched to 90 per cent is considered weapons-grade.

Iran has threatened to restart deactivated centrifuges and sharply step up itsenrichment of uranium to 20 per cent purity as its next potentialbig moves away from the agreement that Washington abandoned last year.

The threats, made Monday by the spokesperson for Iran's nuclearagency, would go far beyond the small steps Iran has taken inthe past week to nudge its stocks of fissile material justbeyond the limits in the nuclear pact.That could raise serious questions about whether theagreement, intended to block Iran from making a nuclear weapon, is still viable.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran's Atomic EnergyOrganization, confirmed an announcement that Tehran had enricheduranium beyond the 3.67 per cent purity the deal allows, passing4.5 per cent, according to the INSA news agency. That followedan announcement a week ago that it had amassed a greaterquantity of low-enriched uranium than permitted.

Iran has said it will take another, third step away from thedeal within 60 days, but has so far held back from formallyannouncing what that next step would entail.

Kamalvandi said the authorities were discussing options thatincluded the prospect of enriching uranium to 20 per cent purity orbeyond, and restarting centrifuges that were dismantled as oneof the deal's core aims. (A centrifuge separates liquids or gases of different weights or densities. In nuclear engineering, they are used to separate isotopes to enrich uranium for nuclear energy or weapons.)

"There is the 20 per cent option and there are options even higherthan that, but each in its own place," Kamalvandi said, accordingto state television. "Restarting IR-2 and IR-2 M centrifuges isan option."

Such threats from Iran will put new pressure on European countries,which insist Iran must continue to comply with the agreementeven though the United States is no longer doing so.

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron about Iran's threat, the White House said.

"They discussed ongoing efforts to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon and to end Iran's destabilizing behaviour in the Middle East," a White House spokesperson said in a statement.

A report to member states that was obtained byReuters said theIAEA had verified the enrichment level using online enrichment monitors, and samples had been taken on Monday for analysis.

Reducing compliance

Iran also saidthe last chance for saving its nuclear deal with world powers will pass after a 60-day deadline.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokespersonAbbas Mousavi told reporters Monday that Iran won't offer any further "deadlines" to save the deal by September.

Iran is pressuring European partners to find a way around U.S. sanctions and deliver the deal's promised economic relief. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew a year ago.

The nuclear agreement guaranteed Iran access to world tradein return for accepting curbs on its program. Iran says the deal allows it to respond to the U.S. breach byreducing its compliance, and it will do so every 60 days.

"If signatories of the deal, particularly Europeans, fail tofulfil their commitments in a serious way, the third step will be stronger, more decisive and a bit surprising," Mousavi said on Monday.

The new U.S. measures in place since May are intended to barIran from all oil exportsand have succeeded in effectivelypushing Iran out of mainstream oil markets.

European countries do not directly support the U.S.sanctions, but have been unable to come up with ways to allow Iran to avert them. Britain, one of Washington's main Europeanallies, was drawn deeper into the confrontation last week whenit seized an Iranian tanker it says was bound for Syria, inviolation of separate EU sanctions on Syria.

U.S. tensions

Washington has imposed sanctions that eliminate any of thebenefits Iran was meant to receive in return for agreeing to the curbs on its nuclear program. The confrontation has brought the U.S. and Iranclose to the brink of conflict.

Enriching uranium up to 20 per centpurity would be a dramatic move,since that was the level Iran had achieved before the deal wasput in place. It is considered an important intermediate stageon the path to obtaining the 90 per cent pure fissile uranium needed to make a bomb.

One of the main achievements of the deal was Iran'sagreement to dismantle its advanced IR-2M centrifuges, which are used to purify uranium. Iran had 1,000 of them installed at itslarge enrichment site at Natanz before the deal was reached.

Under the deal, it is allowed to operate only up to two centrifuges formechanical testing.

Still, the threatened measures also appear intended to besufficiently ambiguous to hold back from fully repudiating thedeal. Kamalvandi did not specify how much uranium Iran mightpurify to the higher level, nor how many centrifuges it wouldconsider restarting. He did not mention other more advancedcentrifuges, including the most advanced, the IR-8.