The UN nuclear watchdog announced on Tuesday that it had found uranium enriched to a level of 83.7% in Iran, just shy of the 90% required to make an atomic bomb.
Asked about the particles found in Iran, the government in Tehran said “unintended fluctuations” during the enrichment process “may have occurred”.
In 2015, Iran reached a deal with world powers to limit the enrichment of uranium and allow IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear sites, in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. But the deal stalled in 2018.
The IAEA report said that during an inspection “on 22 January 2023, the agency took environmental samples… at the Fordow (sic) plant, the analytical results of which showed the presence of high enriched uranium particles containing up to 83.7pc U-235”.
“These events clearly indicate the capability of the agency to detect and report in a timely manner changes in the operation of nuclear facilities in Iran,” it continued.