Iran continues uranium enrichment, no progress on key issues: IAEA

VIENNA: Iran’s production of highly enriched uranium continues and it has not improved cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog despite a resolution demanding this at the agency’s last board meeting, watchdog reports seen by Reuters showed on Thursday.

Iran’s stock of uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride enriched to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade, grew an estimated 22.6 kg to 164.7 kg, one of the two confidential quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency reports sent to member states said.

According to an IAEA yardstick, that is 2 kg short of being enough, in theory, if enriched further, for four nuclear bombs.

“The (IAEA) Director General (Rafael Grossi) expresses the hope that his initial exchange with President Pezeshkian will be followed by an early visit to Iran and the establishment of a fluid, constructive dialogue that swiftly leads to concrete results,” said one of the two confidential, quarterly IAEA reports sent to member states on Thursday.

There has been no progress in the past quarter on several long-standing issues that have soured relations between the IAEA and Tehran, including Iran’s barring of IAEA inspectors specialised in enrichment and Iran’s failure to explain uranium traces at undeclared sites, the reports showed.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic has added cascades, or clusters, of centrifuges, machines that refine uranium, at its main enrichment sites in Natanz and Fordow.