Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran on Thursday of accelerating its efforts to produce enough fissile material for an atomic weapon.
The top U.S. diplomat said Iran’s recent “nuclear escalations” were aimed at extorting the international community and that “all nations” should take steps to increase pressure on Tehran.
“Iran’s expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout,” Pompeo said, referring to the time it would take for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb.
Iran this week began injecting uranium gas into centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment facility near the city of Qom. Under the 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers, enrichment activities are banned at the site.
President Trump, however, withdrew from the nuclear pact, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, and reimposed a harsh embargo on the Iranian economy a year ago.
Unable to sell its oil in many international markets, Iran’s economy has now come under extreme pressure from the new sanctions.
Since then, Iran has breached several of the accord’s restrictions, including caps on the size and purity of its enriched uranium stockpile, in a bid to compel the deal’s other signatories to offset the effects of U.S. sanctions.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Iran continues to enrich uranium at levels far below the 90 percent threshold required for a nuclear weapon. Pompeo did not cite evidence for his claim about a breakout.
Iran’s atomic energy commission in fact said that the Fordow facility would only be enriching uranium up to 4.5 percent by Saturday, which is sufficient for fuel but not remotely close to weapons grade.
One of the biggest advocates for the United States to pull out of the deal was Israel, which maintained that the agreement took the pressure off the Iranian economy even as it was still preparing for an eventual push to create nuclear weapons.
“This is precisely why we opposed the deal; it did not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure,” said Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador in Washington, who said that even under the deal, Iran was still preparing to develop weapons.
Iran’s conventional influence throughout the region has also been expanding, which Oren said directly threatened Israel and had been funded by the oil revenue that flowed during the deal.
In Brussels, E.U. officials who were involved in striking the nuclear deal with Iran are cautious about doing anything to torpedo it. They have sought to preserve a consensus among the 28 E.U. nations to hold on to the accord, even in the face of increasing Iranian challenges to it.
“There is actually a broad consensus in defending the JCPOA and in promoting the JCPOA,” a senior E.U. official said Thursday, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions about Iran. “What has become evident in the latest period is that it has become more difficult to support and promote the JCPOA.”
E.U. leaders have been torn about whether to trigger a dispute mechanism within the accord that could theoretically put pressure on Iran to come back into full compliance with the deal, since that could also inspire Iran to walk away completely. Doing nothing also risks their credibility, though, and gives Iran a pass as it steps up its defiance.
For now, Europe appears content to hold back and hold out for the slim chance either that there is a breakthrough between Trump and Iran’s leadership, or that the deal can be preserved for another year and that a new president in the United States will rejoin the accord. But that could change if Iran pushes further, diplomats say.
Birnbaum reported from Brussels. Steve Hendrix in Jerusalem contributed to this report.