Iran is prepared to dilute its highly enriched uranium if the United States lifts all sanctions on the country, the head of its atomic energy agency said Monday after talks resumed with Washington.
‘In conclusion, in response to a question about the possibility of diluting 60 per cent enriched uranium... the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation said that this depends on whether all sanctions would be lifted in return,’ the official IRNA news agency reported, referring to agency chief Mohammad Eslami, without specifying whether this included all sanctions on Iran or only those imposed by the United States.
Diluting uranium means mixing it with blend material to reduce the enrichment level, so that the final product does not exceed a given enrichment threshold.
Before US and Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June last year, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 per cent, far exceeding the 3.67 per cent limit allowed under a now-defunct nuclear agreement reached with world powers in 2015.
Western countries, led by the United States, suspect Tehran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a claim denied by Iran.
According to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapons state enriching uranium to 60 per cent.
It is also unknown where more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium that Iran possessed prior to the war has ended up, with UN inspectors last recording its location on June 10.
Such a stockpile could allow Iran to build more than nine nuclear bombs if enrichment reached 90 per cent.
US president Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Iran to be subject to a total ban on enrichment, a condition unacceptable to Tehran and far less favourable than the 2015 agreement.
Iran maintains it has a right to a civilian nuclear programme under the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it and 190 other countries are signatories.
Meanwhile, Iran arrested a prominent reformist, local media reported on Monday, deepening a crackdown on dissent following mass protests that posed one of the greatest challenges to the Islamic republic since its inception.
The arrest of Javad Emam, the spokesperson for the main reformist coalition, came days after Iranian and US officials held talks in Oman that both sides painted as positive. The United States had threatened military action against Iran during the peak of the protest movement that swept the nation earlier this year, which saw authorities launch a deadly crackdown to quell dissent.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the military, arrested Emam, the spokesperson for the Reformist Front coalition, local media reported on Monday.
Emam was at least the fourth Reformist Front figure to be arrested, and his arrest came alongside those of several activists and filmmakers for co-signing a statement critical of authorities.
Iran has branded the protests as riots fuelled by its arch-foes Israel and the United States, and on Monday, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the nation to show ‘resolve’ against foreign pressure.
‘National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and resolve of the people,’ Khamenei said, adding: ‘Show it again and frustrate the enemy.’
