Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that could be enriched to produce two nuclear weapons, international nuclear inspectors concluded in a report delivered Monday to the United Nations Security Council.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency appears likely to bolster the Obama administration’s case for a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran, according to
The New York Times. That would further diminish its interest in a deal, recently revived by Turkey and Brazil, in which Iran would send a portion of its nuclear stockpile out of the country.
Iran tentatively agreed eight months ago to get rid of some of its nuclear material, and the Obama administration concluded that would push back Iran’s timetable for making a single nuclear weapon.
But Iran has delayed for months and that has enabled it to stockpile enough material to build two weapons, the inspectors’ report said. Even if Iran now shipped the agreed-upon amount of nuclear material out of the country, it would retain enough for a single weapon, undercutting the American rationale for the deal.
The toughly worded report says that Iran has expanded work at one of its nuclear sites. It also describes, step by step, how inspectors have been denied access to a series of facilities, and how Iran has refused to answer inspectors’ questions on a variety of activities, including what the agency called the “possible existence” of “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” the Times reported.
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The New York Times.