International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors last week found uranium in Iran enriched to levels just below what is needed to build a nuclear weapon. Andrey Baklitsky, a senior fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, told The Insider where Iran could have obtained highly enriched uranium, despite the fact that IAEA experts are in the country who should control the import of equipment, materials and production:
“Iran has a developed enrichment program and significant uranium reserves. Given that Tehran is already enriching uranium to 60%, it is not very difficult to increase the level to 84% (enrichment is not a linear process, most of the work goes into getting to 20%). The IAEA is indeed closely following this process. According to Bloomberg, the agency's sensors detected an increased level of enrichment, after which this issue was raised with Iran. At the same time, one must understand that the IAEA can only collect information and cannot prevent Tehran from doing anything.
The collected information is shared with the organization's member states, which can respond to it at the national level. The IAEA Board of Governors, composed of the same member states, may also decide to move a specific issue to the agenda of the UN Security Council, but further consideration will depend on the alignment of forces and interests in the Security Council, including the right of veto.
Iran has been developing its nuclear program since the 1990s. He has thousands of fairly well-performing uranium enrichment centrifuges, people who know how to operate them, and ample supplies of raw materials. So at least as far as uranium enrichment is concerned, Tehran does not need outside help.”
Now, according to Bloomberg, citing sources, the IAEA is trying to find out how Iran managed to accumulate uranium enriched up to 84% – this is the purest uranium ever discovered in the country. Its concentration is only 6% below the level required to create a nuclear weapon. Iranian authorities have previously assured the IAEA that they are enriching uranium only up to 60%.
Behruz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, called Bloomberg's publication a misrepresentation of facts. "The existence of highly enriched particles is a natural occurrence in each of the enrichment processes," the official told ISNA in an interview.