Tehran (June 28, 2018): Iran has reopened a nuclear plant idle for nine years, its atomic energy agency (AEOI) said on Wednesday, as Tehran prepares to increase uranium enrichment capacity if a nuclear deal with world powers falls apart after the US withdrawal.
US-Iranian tensions have resurged since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear accord, calling it deeply flawed. Under the deal, Iran restricted its enrichment program to ease concerns it could not be put to developing nuclear weapons and in return won relief from sanctions.
European signatories are trying to save the accord, which they see as crucial to forestalling an Iranian nuclear weapon. However, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the AEOI this month to start preparations to upgrade enrichment capacity in case the European efforts fail.
The AEOI said on Wednesday that in response to Khamenei’s order and Trump’s renunciation of the deal, a plant for the production of UF6, the feedstock for centrifuge machines that enrich uranium, had been relaunched and a barrel of yellow cake has been delivered there.
Uranium ore, known as yellowcake, is converted into a gas called uranium hexafluoride (UF6) before enrichment.
The UF6 factory, which had been inactive since 2009 due to a lack of yellow cake, is part of the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, according to AEOI’s statement on its website.
“Iran has imported a huge amount of yellow cake since the nuclear deal” in 2015 and had also produced some domestically. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog that is policing Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, said on June 5 that the AEOI had informed it of “tentative” plans to resume production of UF6.
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