Iran announced on Monday that it had increased its uranium enrichment levels and that within six months it was closer to developing the ability to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
The resumption of enrichment to 20 percent was the latest in a series of escalations that followed President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal that limited Iran to enrichment levels of 4 to 5 percent.
In another provocation, Iran seized a South Korean chemical tanker, citing “environmental concerns and chemical pollution,” the seminormative Tasmin News Agency reported.
The seizure of the vessel, which has been confirmed by the South Korean government, comes as Tehran puts pressure on Seoul to release $ 7 billion in funds due to US sanctions.
The Pentagon further said on Sunday that it had ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz to stay in the Middle East, just three days after it was on its way home in an attempt to ease rising tensions with Tehran.
“Because of the recent threats issued by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other US government officials, I have ordered the USS Nimitz to halt its routine redeployment,” said acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller. a statement said.
Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei told state-run IRNA news agency on Monday that President Hassan Rouhani had ordered the implementation of a law passed last week to authorize the new enrichment levels.
“A few minutes ago, the process of producing 20 percent enriched uranium in Fordow enrichment complex began,” he said. Rabiei told Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.
Fuel enriched up to that level is not sufficient to produce a bomb, but it is close. It is much harder to go from current levels to 20 percent than to go from the level to the 90 percent purity traditionally used for fuel in bomb grade.
Fordow is Iran’s newest nuclear facility, and is embedded deep inside a mountain on a well-protected base of the Islamic Revolutionary Corps. To hit it successfully, repeated attacks will be required with the largest bunker-colliding bomb in the US arsenal.
The decision to boost uranium enrichment, though not a surprise, was officially reached after the assassination of November’s greatest Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, long identified by US and Israeli intelligence services as the leading figure behind a covert attempt to design an atomic head. .
It also coincides with the first anniversary of the assassination of a respected military commander, Qassim Suleimani, in a US missile attack.
In a nutshell statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, accuses Iran of continuing to act in an effort to develop a military nuclear program. ‘
“Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons,” he said. Netanyahu said.
The European Union said on Monday that Iran’s decision to increase uranium enrichment would be a significant departure from the commitments made in 2015.
Peter Stano, a spokesman for the bloc, said Brussels would wait until a briefing by the director of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency later Monday before deciding what steps to take. France, Britain and Germany all sign the 2015 agreement.
The tanker carrying the South Korean flag sank in the waters off Oman on Monday when the Iranian authorities demanded that it move to the Iranian waters for investigation. The ship had 20 crew members on board, including five South Koreans.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our embassy in Iran have looked into the detailed circumstances of the seizure of our ship and confirmed the safety of the crew members,” the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “We demand the early release of the ship.”
The Seoul Defense Ministry said it had sent South Korean naval destroyer Choe Yeong to the waters seized by the tanker, with warnings to other South Korean ships that had sailed into the waters. The naval destroyer was on an anti-piracy mission in the region.
Iranian officials have always maintained that their core ambitions are for peaceful purposes, not for weapons. But they expressed anger and took revenge for the assassination of Mr. Fakhrizadeh, the nuclear scientist.
In December, Iranian lawmakers passed a law ordering the immediate build-up of the uranium enrichment program and expelling international nuclear inspectors if US sanctions are not lifted in early February, prompting President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. .
Mr. Biden’s incoming national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has expressed optimism that the 2015 nuclear power can still be salvaged.
In an article on foreign affairs published in May, Mr. Sullivan and Daniel Benaim, a Middle Eastern adviser to Mr. Pray when he was vice president, that the United States’ should immediately re-establish a nuclear diplomacy with Iran and what they can save. from the nuclear deal in 2015, ”and then work with allies and Iran“ to negotiate a succession agreement. “
Sullivan, who appeared on CNN on Sunday, said that once Iran re-entered into compliance with the nuclear deal in 2015, there would be talks about its missile capability.
“In this broader negotiation, we can finally secure limits on Iran’s ballistic missile technology,” he said. Sullivan said, “and that is what we intend to pursue through diplomacy.”
But the missile program was not covered in the previous agreement because the Iranians refused to commit any restrictions on their development or testing.
And it assumes that the Iranians would be willing to return to the terms of the 2015 agreement under all circumstances.
Reporting was contributed by Adam Rasgon of Jerusalem and Choe Sang-Hun of Seoul.