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Iran Steps Further From Nuclear Deal With Move on Centrifuges Iran Steps Further From Nuclear Deal With Move on Centrifuges
(about 1 hour later)
In an effort to counter American sanctions, Iran will pull further away from a landmark nuclear accord signed four years ago, President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday, announcing that the country would inject uranium gas into more than 1,000 centrifuges at a highly secure site that Iran initially hid from inspectors. Iran announced plans on Wednesday to reactivate its most sensitive nuclear production site, a deep, underground uranium enrichment center, in a step that dismantles more of the last major restrictions on the country under the 2015 nuclear deal.
Injecting the gas into the centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility is a step toward uranium enrichment, which in turn moves Iran closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon, though it has denied harboring such ambitions. The facility, known as Fordow, buried under a mountain to protect against bunker-busting weapons, lay hidden from inspectors for years. The revelation of its existence a decade ago touched off a crisis with the West that led to threats from Israel to destroy the facility.
President Trump withdrew the United States from the accord last year and imposed economic sanctions in an effort to put pressure on the government in Tehran. In response, Iran has taken several calibrated steps this year to exceed the limits the agreement had put on its nuclear program, while calling on Mr. Trump to reverse himself. The atmosphere created by the revelation led, six years later, to the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. Under that deal, in exchange for the lifting of Western economic sanctions, Iran agreed that no fissile material — the makings of bomb fuel — would be put in the centrifuges spinning at the site.
Iran will begin injecting uranium gas into the 1,044 centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility, Mr. Rouhani said; the 2015 agreement had restricted the centrifuges to uses other than nuclear enrichment. In a speech on Tuesday, however, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said that his patience had run out, and that Iran would begin to inject uranium gas into the more than 1,000 centrifuges that remained inside the mountain. But he made it clear that this step was part of a pressure campaign to force Europe to make good on its promises to compensate Iran for the cost of harsh sanctions that the United States imposed on Iran after President Trump abandoned the 2015 deal.
The announcement came a day after Iran said it had doubled the number of more advanced centrifuges operating at its main nuclear plant, at Natanz, and planned to install even more efficient centrifuges. Mr. Rouhani said Iran was reactivating Fordow, which is adjacent to an Iranian military base, precisely because it was considered such a hard military target. Its renewal as a nuclear production site, he suggested, could be easily reversed — part of the carefully calibrated strategy Iran is pursuing to pressure the United States and its allies just as the American-led sanctions on Iran’s oil shipments are intended to pressure Tehran.
The Iranian president portrayed the announcement on Tuesday — as well as three previous steps it had taken beyond the deal — as reversible, but Iran has made clear that it will only step back if the European signatories to the deal find a way to relieve the economic pressure caused by the American sanctions. “We know how sensitive they are to the Fordow facility,” Mr. Rouhani told the country in a speech about why Iran would no longer abide by an agreement that Mr. Trump has abandoned. But he made clear that he regarded Fordow as a mere bargaining chip, saying that when the United States begins “living up to their commitments” to suspend sanctions while Iran was in compliance with the deal, “then we will stop feeding gas to the centrifuges.”
The State Department criticized Mr. Rouhani’s actions on Tuesday. “Iran has no credible reason to expand its uranium enrichment program, at the Fordow facility or elsewhere,” it said in a statement, “other than a clear attempt at nuclear extortion that will only deepen its political and economic isolation.”
It was the third time in six months that Mr. Rouhani had announced a careful series of escalations of Iran’s nuclear capacity. On Monday Iran said it was already producing enriched uranium at an ever-faster pace at its primary nuclear enrichment center at Natanz. In recent weeks it has also discussed rebuilding a plutonium reactor that was disabled under the agreement before it ever went into operation. That process is likely to take years.
None of these steps immediately gets Iran the makings of a bomb. But taken together, they create the condition that the three-year-long negotiating process was intended to stop, at least for a while: Iran’s ability to develop the material for a bomb in a year. President Trump’s complaint with the Iran accord was that key restrictions expired by 2030, but the net result of the recent announcements is that those restrictions are largely being thrown out now.
The potential for an Iranian “breakout,” producing fuel for a nuclear weapon within three months, was why Mr. Trump’s top advisers in his first year in office — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — all urged him to remain in the deal, but press to extend its duration and expand its scope to include Iran’s missile production. Mr. Trump eventually discarded that advice and, over time, all three of those advisers.
The exact details of Iran’s move were difficult to discern. Mr. Rouhani talked about injecting the gas into 1,044 centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility, a major step toward uranium enrichment. The 2015 agreement had restricted the centrifuges to non-nuclear uses.
But Mr. Rouhani stopped short of saying that actual enrichment would follow at Fordow, though it is already underway at the larger Natanz facility. Enrichment moves Iran closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon, though it has denied harboring such ambitions.
The announcement came a day after Iran said it had doubled the number of more advanced centrifuges operating at Natanz, and planned to install even more efficient centrifuges.
While Mr. Rouhani portrayed the announcement on Tuesday — as well as three previous steps it had taken beyond the deal’s limits — as reversible, Iran has made clear that it would step back only if the European signatories to the deal find a way to relieve the economic pressure caused by the American sanctions.
“Resistance lays the ground for negotiation, and negotiation takes advantage of resistance,” Mr. Rouhani said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.“Resistance lays the ground for negotiation, and negotiation takes advantage of resistance,” Mr. Rouhani said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Iran has recently gone beyond the limitations of the nuclear agreement by increasing its nuclear stockpile, enriching uranium at higher levels, and enlarging the number of centrifuges in use. Fordow was built deep under a mountain outside the holy city of Qum, leaving it impervious to all but the biggest bunker-buster bombs in the United States arsenal, and Iran did not acknowledge its existence openly until 2009. The nuclear agreement allowed the centrifuges at the facility to remain in use on the condition that gas was not injected into them. Fordow was of deep concern to the United States and Israel because it was unclear they could destroy it in a conflict with Iran. The United States conducted secret operations to simulate what it would take to collapse the mountain outside the holy city of Qum, using the largest bunker-busting bomb in its arsenal. The commanders concluded that they could destroy it but that the site would have to be attacked repeatedly.
Iran might be able to produce enough fuel for a nuclear bomb in under a year, according to some analysts, and it was not immediately clear how the announcement on Tuesday would change the equation. In the negotiations in 2015, the Obama administration sought, and failed, to close the facility entirely. One American negotiator conceded that leaving it in place was a “bitter pill.” An eventual compromise allowed the centrifuges at the facility to remain in use on the condition that gas was not injected into them.
Sanam Vakil, a research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, said that Iranian authorities had remained “relatively calibrated” with the announcement on Tuesday. With the steps taken in recent weeks, Iran might be able to produce enough fuel for a single nuclear bomb in under a year, according to some analysts, but it was not immediately clear how the announcement on Tuesday would change the equation.
“Iran is pushing the red lines, as part of its own maximum pressure campaign to reverse Europe’s position. But Iran could have done more and they’re not,” she said. “This is still one those steps that Iran can reverse.” Sanam Vakil, a research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, said that the Iranian authorities had remained “relatively calibrated” with the announcement on Tuesday.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran has been allowed to enrich uranium with 5,000 first-generation centrifuges, known as IR-1, at Natanz. “Iran is pushing the red lines, as part of its own maximum pressure campaign to reverse Europe’s position,” she said. “But Iran could have done more and they’re not. This is still one those steps that Iran can reverse.”
The additional 1,044 centrifuges at Fordow are also IR-1, which are seen by experts as antiquated. The more advanced centrifuges, known as IR-6, refine uranium 10 times faster, according to Iranian authorities, and Iran said on Monday that it had started injecting gas into them at the Natanz plant. The American sanctions, which Mr. Rouhani described Monday as “wrong, cruel and illegal,” delivered a blow to an already fragile Iranian economy, and the Iranian government has responded with what is effectively a two-track strategy — rebuilding its capability while insisting that Europe make up for the economic losses caused by American sanctions.
The American sanctions, which Mr. Rouhani described as “wrong, cruel and illegal,” delivered another blow to an already fragile Iranian economy, and the Iranian government has responded with what is effectively a two-track strategy.
The agreement was signed in 2015 by Iran and the United States, along with China, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and the European Union. Iran agreed to reduce the size of its nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions.
Mr. Trump, in withdrawing from the pact, reimposed old sanctions, and later added new ones. Iran has argued that it cannot abide by the deal as long as the sanctions are crippling its economy, while at the same time saying it would adhere to the agreement if the European partners to the nuclear agreement could lessen their effect.
The European signatories, which still support the deal, have sought to find ways to address the Iranian concerns but have been unable to come up with alternatives that satisfy Tehran without running afoul of the United States sanctions.Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said the union was “concerned” about the announcement, urging Iran to reverse earlier breaches of the nuclear deal and refrain from any further moves that would undermine it.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that Russia would like to see the nuclear deal remain in force, but he also expressed sympathy for Iran, citing the “unprecedented and illegitimate sanctions” against it.
The United States recently extended a waiver from sanctions for foreign companies, including Russia’s state-run nuclear company, Rosatom, to continue work at the Fordow site, but Moscow does not expect the developments on Tuesday to affect its role there.
The Fordow fuel enrichment plant, unlike the facility at Natanz, it is too small to produce an effective amount of nuclear fuel for civilian purposes, leading the West to conclude that its purpose was to help create a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently denied that it is seeking to build a bomb.
“We know their sensitivity with regard to Fordow” and the centrifuges, Mr. Rouhani said in a speech that was broadcast live to the nation, the state-run Press TV reported. “But at the same time when they uphold their commitments, we will cut off the gas again.”
Mr. Rouhani, who said the work at Fordow would be carried out under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, expressed a willingness to restart nuclear talks if Washington returns to the deal and removes the sanctions.Mr. Rouhani, who said the work at Fordow would be carried out under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, expressed a willingness to restart nuclear talks if Washington returns to the deal and removes the sanctions.
“We should be able to sell our oil,” Mr. Rouhani said, according to The Associated Press. “We should be able to bring our money” into the country.“We should be able to sell our oil,” Mr. Rouhani said, according to The Associated Press. “We should be able to bring our money” into the country.
Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said the union was “concerned” about the announcement, urging Iran to reverse earlier breaches of the nuclear deal and to refrain from any further moves that would undermine it.
Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that Russia would like to see the nuclear deal remain in force, but he also expressed sympathy for Iran, citing the “unprecedented and illegitimate sanctions” against it.
The United States recently extended a waiver from sanctions for foreign companies, including Russia’s state-run nuclear company, Rosatom, to continue work at the Fordow site, but Moscow does not expect the developments on Tuesday to affect its role there.
Elian Peltier and Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.Elian Peltier and Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.