Iran feeding uranium gas into advanced centrifuges underground - IAEA

The move is the latest nuclear standoff escalation by Iran with the US, Israel and their allies.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi listens as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi delivers his speech at the opening of the IAEA General Conference at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria September 21, 2020 (photo credit: REUTERS/LEONHARD FOEGER)
IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi listens as head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali-Akbar Salehi delivers his speech at the opening of the IAEA General Conference at their headquarters in Vienna, Austria September 21, 2020
(photo credit: REUTERS/LEONHARD FOEGER)
Iran has begun feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas feedstock into the advanced IR-2m uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at its underground plant in Natanz nuclear facility, according to a UN nuclear watchdog report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
The move is the latest nuclear standoff escalation by Iran with the US, Israel and their allies.
According to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic can only accumulate enriched uranium with first-generation IR-1 machines, which are the only ones it can operate at the underground plant. The Obama-era deal is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
 A previous International Atomic Energy Agency report said that Iran had installed IR-2m machines underground.
“On 14 November 2020, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding UF6 into the recently installed cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz,” the International Atomic Energy Agency report to member states said dated Tuesday.
Until Iran’s new breach on Wednesday, it was unclear whether Tehran had taken the incoming Biden administration into account with its moves at Natanz.
The last report about Iranian violations there came out after Biden was announced as winning the US presidential election, but was based on a November 2 visit – meaning the day before US Election Day.
With the latest report, the Islamic Republic is either challenging the incoming Biden administration or responding to new threats by the Trump administration, or both.
Also last week, the IAEA revealed that it found Tehran’s explanations unsatisfactory as to how and why certain nuclear program-related particles were found by agency inspectors at sites where they should not have been present.
The IAEA made it clear that it will maintain pressure on Tehran on the issue to explain the discrepancies.
But the bigger issue remains why the new advanced centrifuges were being installed at all.
Iran had previously informed the agency that it would transfer three cascades of the uranium-enriching machines from an aboveground pilot plant at the Natanz nuclear site to the underground one after an aboveground centrifuge workshop exploded in an apparent act of sabotage.
The escalation can still be described as limited.
So far, Iran is only using 174 of its IR-2ms, out of more than 1,000; Iran is permitted to use around 6,000 IR-1s under the JCPOA.
Put simply, 174 IR-2ms do not hugely change the speed at which Iran could break out to a nuclear weapon.
Furthermore, although the IR-2m is more advanced than the IR-1, it is nowhere near as advanced as the IR-4 and IR-6, which Iran finally succeeded in getting to work in 2020.
If Iran keeps the number of IR-2ms low – even if it at some point it installs the other advanced centrifuges but also keeps those numbers low – it may simply be trying to restore what it already had aboveground prior to the July 2 sabotage of its previous Natanz advanced centrifuge facility.


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