The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, will meet with the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency Mohammad Eslami on November 23, 2021 in Tehran, Iran. ISNA / WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
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VIENNA, November 28 (Reuters) – Talks on the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are set to resume on Monday in Vienna, according to the agreement.
Since the United States pulled out of the deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump, Iran has violated many of its restrictions, which aim to reduce the time it takes to produce enough fissile material to produce a nuclear bomb from 2 to at least to extend one year. 3 months – the so-called “breakout time”.
Iran only wants to enrich uranium for civil purposes. But many suspect that it is at least trying to exert influence in the indirect talks with the US by getting closer to producing a nuclear weapon.
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How close is Iran to it and what remains of the agreement’s restrictions?
OUTBREAK TIME
Experts generally estimate the breakout time to be around three to six weeks, but say it would take longer to arm – often around two years. The Israeli finance minister recently said Iran could have nuclear weapons within five years.
ENRICHMENT
The deal limits the purity to which Iran can enrich uranium to 3.67%, well below the roughly 90% weapons grade or 20% Iran achieved prior to the deal. Iran is now accumulating at various levels, the highest being around 60%.
The treaty also states that Iran can only produce or accumulate enriched uranium with just over 5,000 of its least efficient first-generation centrifuges at one facility: the Underground Fuel Enrichment Facility (FEP) at Natanz.
The deal allows Iran to use small numbers of advanced centrifuges, often at least twice as efficient as the IR-1, to enrich for research without accumulating enriched uranium.
Iran is currently refining uranium with hundreds of advanced centrifuges in both the FEP and the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) in Natanz.
It is also adding more than 1,000 IR-1s at Fordow, a facility buried in a mountain, and plans to do the same with more than 100 advanced centrifuges already installed.
URANIUM STORAGE SITE
The International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees Iran’s nuclear activity, estimated this month that Tehran’s enriched uranium inventory is just under 2.5 tonnes, more than twelve times the treaty limit of 202.8 kg (446 pounds), however less than more than five tons that it was before the deal.
However, it is now accumulating to a higher level and has around 17.7 kg of uranium that is enriched up to 60%. Around 25 kg of weapons-grade uranium are required to manufacture an atomic bomb.
INSPECTIONS AND MONITORING
The agreement prompted Iran to implement the so-called additional protocol of the IAEA, which enables quick inspections of undeclared locations. In addition, IAEA surveillance by cameras and other devices has been expanded beyond the core activities and inspections covered by the long-standing Iranian Agreement on Comprehensive Protective Measures with the IAEA.
Iran has stopped implementing the Additional Protocol and allows the additional surveillance to continue only in a black-box-like arrangement in which the data is collected and stored by cameras and other devices, but the IAEA at least for no access to it has for the time being.
The only exception to continued surveillance is a centrifuge parts shop at the TESA Karaj complex, which was hit by apparent sabotage in June that destroyed one of four IAEA cameras there, causing Iran to remove them all. Iran has not had the IAEA reinstall the cameras since then.
POSSIBLE WEAPONS
Iran has produced uranium metal, both enriched to 20% and not enriched. This alarms the Western powers because uranium metal production is a critical step in bomb making, and no country has done so without eventually developing nuclear weapons.
Iran says it is working on reactor fuel.
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Reporting by Francois Murphy Editing by Mark Heinrich
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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