Iran fulfilled what was announced three weeks ago and, on the 42nd anniversary of the triumph of the Islamic revolution, it has begun the production of uranium metal “to produce fuel for its research reactor,” according to Iranian officials. The inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) working in the Islamic Republic certified the existence of 3.6 grams of this substance in the Isfahan plant. The metal uranium is necessary to produce fuel, but it can also be used to make the core of a nuclear warhead, and this raised concerns among the European signatories of the agreement, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Iranian Atomic Energy Agency stressed that “it has a peaceful use and does not violate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Iran is moving away step by step from the agreed text, a strategy that is Tehran’s response to the unilateral decision taken by Donald Trump in 2018 to withdraw the United States from the pact and to bet again on sanctions. Joe Biden, who was vice president when Barack Obama negotiated with the Iranians, insists that he wants to recover the agreement and bet on diplomacy, but demands before Iran return to the terms of 2015. The Islamic Republic responds that they were the ones who broke the pact and that therefore it corresponds to them to take the first step and lift the punishments. Time is running out and the lack of trust between the parties makes it increasingly difficult to resurrect an agreement that managed to appease the Iranian nuclear threat.
Under terms signed in Vienna in 2015, the Iranians agree not to produce metal uranium or carry out uranium metallurgy experiments for fifteen years. This step is in addition to those that have already been taken so far, such as enriching uranium to a purity of 20 percent, far from the 3.67 percent allowed, or the start-up of latest generation centrifuges.
Trump opted for “maximum pressure” on Iran to try to get Tehran to agree to renegotiate the agreement to make it more comprehensive and, in addition to the nuclear issue, include the ballistics program and regional interference, but failed. Tehran has not given in to outside pressure and now hopes that Biden will again fulfill what Obama signed off on six years ago.The Iranians also do not forget the murder of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which occurred in November in Tehran and of which they accuse the Israeli Mossad, and these new measures adopted to respond to the request of the parliament after this murder to “revive the brilliant nuclear industry of the country. The most conservative sectors of Iran are committed to abandoning the nuclear pact signed in 2015, avoiding its limitations and ending cooperation with IAEA investigators, whom they call “spies.”
