The deal that President Donald J. Trump abandoned in 2018 limited Tehran’s ability to install new centrifuges and forced it to ship 97 percent of nuclear fuel out of the country. Biden’s rejection of Iran’s request to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its list of terrorist organizations, along with a new revenue stream for Tehran due to today’s soaring oil prices, contributed to the talks. judgment becomes deadlocked.
Now, the Iranians are looking for new pressure points, including the excavation of the mountain factory near Natanz. And in the past week, Iranian authorities have turned off 27 cameras for inspectors to see Iran’s fuel production.
The decision to remove the cameras installed as part of the nuclear deal prompted Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations agency responsible for nuclear inspections. people, especially worried. Last week, Mr. Grossi said: “If the cameras remain off for weeks and can’t track the trace of nuclear material, then ‘I think this will be a fatal blow’ to hopes of a revival. determined.
But this is not just an inspection dispute. In the eyes of experts, Tehran is approaching what Robert Litwak, who has written extensively on the Iran program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, calls “”nuclear threshold state whose uranium enrichment program creates an inherent option — a hedge — to nuclear weapons production,” without actually taking the final step.
“Iran’s move at Natanz,” he said of the plant currently under construction, “puts pressure on the United States to strike a new deal by highlighting the risk of a nuclear explosion if diplomacy fails. .”
The tunnel complex appeared on the mountainside
For decades, a barren patch of land near Natanz has been the center of Iran’s nuclear effort. The country has always insisted that its underground “pilot plant” there is only working to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes – the production of nuclear energy. The evidence, some of which was stolen by Israel from a warehouse in Tehran, suggests the opposite: Iran has been planning to build a bomb for two decades, if it concludes that it is in its interest.
