DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran has started up new cascades of advanced centrifuges and plans to install others in the coming weeks after facing criticism over its nuclear program, the United Nations’ atomic watchdog said Friday. The US called the moves “nuclear escalations.”Spinning up new centrifuges further advances Iran’s nuclear program, which already enriches uranium at near-weapons-grade levels and boasts a stockpile enough for several nuclear bombs if it chose to pursue them. However, the acknowledgement from the International Atomic Energy Agency did not include any suggestion Iran planned to go to higher enrichment levels amid wider tensions between Tehran and the West as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.
The IAEA said its inspectors verified Monday that Iran had begun feeding uranium into three cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility. Cascades are a group of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to more quickly enrich the uranium.
So far, Iran has been enriching uranium in those cascades up to 2% purity. Iran already enriches uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Iran also plans to install 18 cascades of IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz and eight cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordo nuclear site. Each of these classes of centrifuges enrich uranium faster than Iran’s baseline IR-1 centrifuges, which remain the workhorse of the country’s atomic program. READ MORE
Tehran did not immediately acknowledge the decision. However, it comes after Iran threatened to take action following a vote earlier this month at the IAEA’s Board of Governors that censured Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the agency.
