Iran Confirms Launch Of Gas Into Restricted Advanced Uranium-Enriching Centrifuges

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th November, 2020) Iran's Permanent Representative to the UN Office and International Organizations in Vienna Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed on Wednesday that the country had begun feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into advanced IR-2m centrifuges at the Natanz facility.

Earlier in the day, media cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Authority as saying that Iran had fired up centrifuges, prohibited under the 2015 nuclear deal, at an underground nuclear facility in the central Natanz city.

"The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency released a half-page report yesterday, announcing that on 14 November 2020, IAEA inspectors have verified that Iran began feeding UF6 into the cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant in Natanz," Gharibabadi said on Twitter, as quoted by Iran's Mehr news agency.

Iran is prohibited from running such advanced centrifuges under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The deal was signed in 2015 by Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, stipulating the removal of international sanctions from Tehran in exchange for it scaling down its nuclear program.

The original deal became short-lived, as the US unilaterally withdrew in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran, to which the latter responded by gradually abandoning its own commitments.