MESOPOTAMIA NEWS “DANGER!”:  Iran inaugurates new nuclear technology

Rudaw 10 April 2021 – ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran started up more advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges live on state TV on Iran’s National Nuclear Technology Day, a day after the latest round of talks to revive the nuclear accord wrapped up.
President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated cascades of 164 IR-6 centrifuges and 30 IR-6S devices that enrich uranium more quickly at the Natanz facility. Iran also started testing an advanced IR-9 centrifuge.
In the ceremony unveiling 133 nuclear achievements, Rouhani said that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful and civilian purposes only.

Iran may have made a new breach of the nuclear deal this week, according to a report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that has not been made public. The breach relates to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, extracting a small amount of material that can be further processed and used for civilian purposes such as medical imaging, Reuters reported.

Tehran is “rapidly” continuing its nuclear activity, according to the spokesperson for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. “The number of our centrifuges and the amount of enriched material are increasing rapidly,” Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Friday. Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit set in the nuclear deal.

These new steps come in the middle of sensitive talks to bring the United States back into the 2015 nuclear deal and Iran into full compliance with its obligations under accord. The second round of face-to-face meetings in Vienna wrapped up on Friday, with European representatives shuttling between the American and Iranian delegations.

Washington described indirect discussions with Iran as “productive,” but urged Tehran to be “pragmatic” in its expectations of what can be achieved as the two sides plan how to return to the nuclear deal, especially what sanctions relief the United States can provide.

The US is prepared to lift “all sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA and are inconsistent with the benefits that Iran expects from the JCPOA,” a senior State Department official told reporters on Friday. But, “That doesn’t mean all of them because there are some that are legitimate.”

Under the JCPOA, the US has the right to impose non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, for instance targeting human rights abuses or terrorism, designations frequently applied by the administration of former US President Donald Trump. They “relabeled things using terrorism designations… which had originally been designated on nuclear grounds,” said the State Department official, adding that reversing this will be a “painstaking effort.”

Iran has taken the position that all sanctions imposed by Trump after withdrawing from the nuclear deal in 2018 must be lifted. “All Trump sanctions were anti-JCPOA & must be removed – [without] distinction between arbitrary designations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif tweeted on Friday.

If Iran sticks to this position, “then we’re heading towards an impasse,” said the State Department official.

Tehran also wants to see the effect of lifting sanctions, like the ability to sell oil and conduct banking transactions, and then will return to full compliance with the accord.