By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
VIENNA (Worthy News) – The United States demanded Wednesday that Iran is diluting all of its enriched uranium to up to “60 percent purity” after warnings from United Nations experts that the Islamic Republic could enrich towards having nuclear weapons.
The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) acknowledged in a confidential report to member states that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fell slightly in the past quarter. Tehran, it added, had diluted, or “downblended,” more of its most highly enriched material than it had produced.
However, the IAEA warned that Iran still has enough of that material, if enriched further, to fuel two powerful nuclear weapons and enough for more bombs at lower enrichment levels.
The report prompted the U.S. to say that “Iran should downblend all, not just some, of its 60 percent stockpile, and stop all production of uranium enriched to 60 percent entirely,” the United States stressed.
Even the demanded of 60 percent is close to the 90 percent weapons-grade level, experts say.
The U.S. statement on Iran was given to a quarterly meeting of the 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors.
It was not immediately clear why Iran downblended the material, though Tehran has come under mounting international pressure to halt or at least reduce its nuclear program.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DENIAL
Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has the right to enrich to high levels for civil, peaceful purposes.
However, Western powers say there is no credible civil justification for enriching to such high levels. “We continue to have serious concerns related to the stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran continues to maintain,” the U.S. stressed.
“No other country today is producing uranium enriched to 60 percent for the purpose Iran claims, and Iran’s actions are counter to the behavior of all other non-nuclear weapons states party to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty),” Washington added.
The United States also condemned the barring of some of the IAEA’s most experienced and expert inspectors last year, among other moves that the IAEA has also criticized.
There is concern that Iran’s nuclear program could add to tensions in the Middle East, where Israel has said it won’t allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran also supports several groups seeking the destruction of the Jewish nation.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Christian residents in the Dutch town of Urk, known for its many churches and fishing traditions, are providing shelter to Jews after the Netherlands’ first pogrom since World War Two.
The ‘Days of Repentance’ operation launched by Israel against Iran in late October targeted and destroyed a highly secretive nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, according to Axios.
A United Nations committee has agreed to tackle “hate speech” and “misinformation” globally through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and media, despite worries the approach may “stifle pluralistic debate.”
Christians in Myanmar’s Rakhine state face continued persecution by the country’s Buddhist military junta (Tatmadaw), which has proved itself violently hostile to believers and recently imposed new restrictions on church services, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Brief scuffles broke out, and soccer fans whistled and booed as the Israeli anthem played at the start of the France-Israel match in Paris following a pogrom against Jews in the Netherlands, officials said Friday.
China’s President Xi Jinping has inaugurated a controversial massive port on the edge of Peru’s coastal desert that locals fear will leave many of them without a hopeful future.
With pornography increasingly and freely available to minors on the internet, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) has called on the Canadian parliament to support a bill that would hold pornography platforms accountable to “ensure child sexual abuse materials and intimate images shared without consent are not uploaded to their sites,” Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.