DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Iran on Monday began enriching uranium to unprecedented levels since the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and also seized a South Korean flag tanker near the essential Strait of Hormuz, a challenge for the West with double barrel further increases Middle Eastern tensions.
Both decisions appear to be to increase Tehran’s leverage in the waning days in office for President Donald Trump, whose unilateral withdrawal from the 2018 nuclear deal began a series of escalating incidents.
Increasing enrichment at its underground Fordo plant puts Tehran a technical step away from the 90% armaments level, while also putting President-elect Joe Biden under pressure to negotiate quickly. Iran’s seizure of MT Hankuk Chemi comes as a South Korean diplomat travels to the Islamic Republic to discuss the release of billions of dollars in Iranian assets now frozen in Seoul.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif apparently acknowledged Tehran’s interest in exploiting the situation in a tweet about its nuclear enrichment.
“Our measures are completely reversible to the FULL compliance by ALL,” he wrote.
At Fordo, Iranian nuclear scientists, under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, loaded centrifuges with more than 130 kilograms of lane-enriched uranium up to 20%, said Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN Atomic Energy Agency. .
The IAEA later described the Fordo setup as three sets of two interconnected cascades, consisting of 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges – Iran’s first generation centrifuges. A waterfall is a group of centrifuges that work together to enrich uranium faster.
Iranian state television quoted government spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying that President Hassan Rouhani had instructed him to start production. This comes after parliament passed a bill, which was later approved by a constitutional watchdog, aimed at increasing enrichment to push Europe to provide sanctions relief.
Iran’s decision to start enriching with a purity of 20% a decade ago almost caused an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that only eased with the 2015 nuclear deal, which limited Iran’s enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
A resumption of 20% enrichment could lead to a return to debauchery. An Iranian scientist who had established the country’s military nuclear program two decades earlier had killed an attack in November in which Israel blamed.
From Israel, which has its own black weapons program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticizes Iran’s enrichment decision and says it can not be explained in any other way than continuing to achieve its goal of developing a military nuclear program. ‘
“Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Tehran has long maintained its nuclear program is peaceful. The US State Department says it has “continued to assess last year that Iran is not currently engaged in key activities related to the design and development of a nuclear weapon.” This reflects previous reports by US intelligence agencies and the IAEA, although experts warn that Iran currently has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two nuclear weapons if it were to pursue it.
Iran informed the IAEA last week that it intends to increase enrichment to 20%.
Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary revolutionary guard seized the MT Hankuk Chemi, with photos later released of the vessels next to the tanker. Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed the tanker on Monday in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
The ship traveled from a petrochemical plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. According to data analysis firm Refinitiv, the vessel is carrying a chemical consignment including methanol.
Iran claims to have seized the vessel because it pollutes the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the gorge’s narrow mouth through which 20% of the world’s oil passes.
Calls to the ship-listed owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd., from Busan, South Korea, was not answered Monday after business hours. South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous company official who denied the Iranians that the ship was polluting the water.
The captain “asked why we should go and investigate and got no answer,” Yonhap quoted the official as saying.
In recent months, Iran has sought to increase pressure on South Korea to unlock some $ 7 billion in frozen assets from oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions against the country’s oil exports.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry has demanded the release of the ship and said in a statement that the crew is safe. According to the guard, sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam included. The South Korean Ministry of Defense has said it is also sending its anti-piracy unit near the Strait of Hormuz, which is a 4400-ton destroyer, with about 300 troops.
Kmdt. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said authorities were aware and were monitoring the situation. Last year, Iran similarly seized a British flag oil tanker and detained it for months after one of its tankers was kept away from Gibraltar.
The incidents coincide with the commemoration of the American drone attack that Genl. Qassem killed Soleimani in Baghdad. Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq and injuring dozens of US troops. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane that night, killing all 176 people on board.
As the commemoration approached and fears of possible Iranian retaliation increased, the US sent B-52 bombers across the region and ordered a submarine with nuclear power in the Persian Gulf.
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said late Sunday that he had changed his mind about sending the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz home from the Middle East and instead keeping the vessel on duty. He cited Iranian threats against Trump and other U.S. government officials as the reason for the redeployment, without expanding.
Last week, sailors discovered a sleeper mine trapped on a tanker in the Persian Gulf outside Iraq near the Iranian border while preparing to transfer fuel to another tanker owned by a company operating on the Stock market traded in New York. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining, though it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 near the Strait of Hormuz that blamed the U.S. Navy on Iran. Tehran denies involvement.
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Associated Press authors Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul and Robert Burns in Washington contributed.