Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
- A UN nuclear watchdog has found uranium enriched to 83.7% purity at Iran's nuclear plants.
- That's less than 7% short of the 90% purity needed to create nuclear weapons.
- The new findings come as Iran continually breaches its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Uranium found at an Iranian nuclear facility was enriched almost to the point where it can be used to make bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said.
The global watchdog said in a Tuesday report that it found uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity, just shy of the 90% needed to create nuclear weapons, at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant near the city of Qom, per multiple media outlets.
On February 19, Bloomberg reported that the highly enriched uranium had been discovered, citing two senior diplomats.
Iran denied reports that it's been enriching its uranium past the 60% mark, saying on Friday that such accounts are part of a "conspiracy" against its government.
Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, claimed that the IAEA's report was based on a single particle that can't even be seen by a microscope, according to state-owned news agency Mehr News.
But Iran also told the IAEA that its latest discovery came from "unintended fluctuations in enrichment levels," the watchdog said in its Tuesday report, per the Wall Street Journal.
The United Nations agency said it's been discussing its findings with Iran to "clarify the matter," per the WSJ.
The latest development comes as a top US defense official warned that Iran's nuclear capability has reached a point where it could make a fission bomb "in about 12 days."
In contrast, it would have taken the country 12 months to create such a weapon with its capabilities from 2018, Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defence for policy, said on Tuesday.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday that the US and its allies are still discussing how to deal with the newly released information about the highly enriched uranium.
"We are supremely confident in the commitment that we have made that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon," he said.
Iran, which says it's using uranium to supply energy to the country, has for the last two years already been enriching uranium to 60% purity — far higher than levels suitable for civilian use.
That means it's been breaching its 2015 nuclear deal with Western powers, China, and Russia. The deal was originally supposed to see Iran reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98% and limit enrichment from 20% to 3.67%, which is ideal for the country's energy needs.
But the agreement is on the brink of collapse since then-President Donald Trump pulled the US out in 2018 and once again sanctioned Iran.
Iran has in turned continually breached the deal, raising the level of its uranium enrichment and stockpiling more material.
President Joe Biden is seeking to restore the Obama-era deal, but his administration has said that it's up to Iran to come forward and engage in negotiations.