Iran Signals Willingness to Dilute Enriched Uranium if US Lifts Sanctions
According to Iran’s official IRNA news agency, Mohammad Eslami stated that the possibility of diluting uranium enriched to 60 percent would depend on whether sanctions are fully lifted in return.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Iran is prepared to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium if the United States lifts sanctions imposed on the country, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Monday, following the resumption of talks between Tehran and Washington.
According to Iran’s official IRNA news agency, Mohammad Eslami stated that the possibility of diluting uranium enriched to 60 percent would depend on whether sanctions are fully lifted in return. He did not clarify whether this condition applies to all international sanctions or only those imposed by the United States.
Dilution involves blending enriched uranium with other material to reduce its enrichment level so that it remains below a specified threshold.
Prior to US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent purity—well above the 3.67 percent limit set under the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, which has since collapsed.
Western governments, led by the United States, have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, an allegation Tehran has repeatedly denied. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has previously reported that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state producing uranium enriched to 60 percent. The agency has also said it is unclear where more than 400 kilograms of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, last verified on June 10, is currently located.
Experts say such a quantity could potentially be sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear weapons if enriched to 90 percent purity.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for a complete ban on Iran’s uranium enrichment, a demand Tehran has rejected as unacceptable and more restrictive than the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iran argues that it has the right to pursue a civilian nuclear program under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which it is a signatory along with 190 other countries.