In its quarterly report Monday, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran has boosted its levels of enriched uranium stockpiles to more than 13 times the amount it agreed to in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPOA) deal with other nations in 2015.
France 24 reported that the nuclear watchdog agency’s report found Iran had a stockpile of 3,809.3 kilograms as of May 15, almost 13 times the 300 kilograms allowed in the 2015 JCPOA deal reached with other nations.
The amounts of uranium being enriched there exceed the 3.67% the agreement allows, the report said.
While the report said that the stockpile of material is enriched up to 60%, below the 90% required for nuclear weapons, it finds the change to be “significant.”
A separate report issued by the agency Monday said Iran was not forthcoming with answers about sites in Marivan, Varamin, and Turquzabad, and the amount of “undeclared nuclear material” located there.
According to the report, Iran claims the sites were contaminated through “an act of sabotage by a third party.”
"Iran has not provided explanations that are technically credible in relation to the agency's findings at those locations," the second IAEA report stated, according to a Jerusalem Post report. "The safeguards issues related to these three locations remain outstanding."
Talks for the United States to reenter the JCPOA, enacted during the term of former President Barack Obama, and withdrawn from by former President Donald Trump in 2018, have since stalled.
At the time, Trump said the deal was bad for the United States, and a new deal had to be brokered with Iran, The New York Times reported in 2018.
“This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” The Times reported Trump as saying in an 11-minute address from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
President Joe Biden, who served as vice president under Obama, has been trying to get back into the deal by negotiating with Tehran, but officials are “not particularly optimistic, to put it mildly,” according to a May 25 Washington Post report.
“There is no military response … we’ve heard this repeatedly,” including from Israel, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said in the Post’s report. “The only option here is the diplomatic one.”
Iran continues to maintain that its use of nuclear technology is peaceful and not geared to making weapons, according to Reuters.
The IAEA'a 35-nation board is scheduled to meet next week and could draft a resolution criticizing Iran for its actions, putting a further wedge into negotiations going on in Vienna for the U.S. to re-enter the accord.
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