Iran may choose to enrich uranium at a higher purity level as its next step in a new policy that’s gradually undoing the restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal.
It’s “among the options considered” as part of Iran cutting back on its commitments within the accord, official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Monday, citing Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
In a separate report, Kamalvandi told state-run Iranian Students News Agency that the country reached enrichment levels of 4.5 per cent purity earlier on Monday, which meets the needs of Iran’s nuclear reactors.
Iran threatened in May to abandon some of its commitments under the multiparty deal abandoned by the U.S. a year ago if Europe didn’t meet a July 7 deadline to relieve sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, which include penalties for buying Iranian oil.
Less than a week after exceeding the cap on its stockpile of low-grade uranium, Tehran announced on Sunday that it will resume purifying uranium beyond the 3.67 per cent allowed under the agreement, without saying how much closer it would get to weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.
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