Iran’s nukesThe State of the Deal: How the Numbers on Iran's Nuclear Program Stack up
When it comes to the state of the Iran nuclear deal, there are enough figures flying around to make your head spin like atoms in a first-generation gas centrifuge. Here’s a little guide to help you keep track of the score.
When it comes to the state of the Iran nuclear deal, there are enough figures flying around to make your head spin like atoms in a first-generation gas centrifuge.
Uranium-235; 3.67-percent enrichment; a 300-kilogram cap; Paragraph 36 of UN Resolution 2231 — it has become a dangerous numbers game as Iran and the United States play chicken over Iran’s nuclear program.
Here’s a little guide to help you keep track of the score:
300 Kilograms
On 1 July, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) had exceeded 300 kilograms, breaching the limit set in a 2015 nuclear deal worked out between world powers and Iran.
The development placed the future of the already troubled deal — which intended to provide assurances that Iran could not develop a nuclear weapon and had reduced Tehran’s stockpile of LEU by 98 percent — under heightened scrutiny.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nonpartisan Washington-based Arms Control Association, noted that Iran had a stockpile of 11,500 kilograms of low-enriched uranium prior to the signing of the deal in July 2015.
“It takes roughly 1,050 kilograms of LEU in gas form and enriched to weapons-grade (90 percent) to produce a significant quantity (25 kilograms) for one bomb,” he wrote in comments to RFE/RL.
3.67 Percent
A week later, Iran announced that in keeping with a warning issued two months ago it had begun enriching uranium above the 3.67-percent concentration level set in the nuclear deal.
This claim, confirmed by the IAEA on 8 July, was met with alarm by former and current parties to the nuclear accord, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA).
The European Union said it was “extremely concerned” by the latest development, while U.S. President Donald Trump warned that “Iran better be careful.”
President Trump: “Iran better be careful. Because you enrich for one reason and I won’t tell you what that reason is. But it’s no good. They better be careful.” https://t.co/J8U71L11ql pic.twitter.com/LrJxcz9EvZ
— The Hill (@thehill) July 8, 2019
