The Iranian nuclear issue has been in turmoil since the assassination of physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh at the end of November.
Le Monde avec AFP
The Iranian authorities have started the process to produce uranium enriched to 20%, well above the threshold set by the international agreement of 2015, in the underground plant of Fordo, announced Monday, January 4, state television quoted government spokesman Ali Rabii.
In a letter, dated December 31, Tehran told the International Energy Agency atomic (IAEA) of its desire to produce 20% enriched uranium.
According to latest report from the UN agency, published in November, Iran enriched uranium to a degree of purity higher than the limit provided for in the 2015 agreement (3.67%) but did not exceed the threshold of 4 , 5%, and always complied with the very strict regime t IAEA inspections. But the case has been experiencing turmoil since the assassination of an Iranian nuclear physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, at the end of November.
Breaking free from the main commitments
In the wake of this attack attributed by Iran to Israel, the Iranian parliament passed a controversial law calling for the production and storage of “at least 120 kilograms per year of 20% enriched uranium” and to “end” IAEA inspections , intended to verify that the country does not seek to acquire the atomic bomb. The Iranian government had opposed this initiative denounced by the other signatories of the 2015 agreement, who had called in December Tehran not to “compromise the future”.
From May 2019 Iran had already started to free itself from the main commitments made under the Vienna agreement intended to limit its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against it. This disengagement began a year after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from these agreements, followed by the return of heavy American sanctions which deprived Iran of the expected fallout from the agreement.