DUBAI, UAE – Iran began enriching uranium on Monday to levels not seen since the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and also seized a South Korean-flagged oil tanker near the Hormuz Strait, a double challenge with a pipe to further raise tensions in the Middle East.
Both decisions have been aimed at raising Tehran’s leverage in the days of declining office for President Donald Trump, whose unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 began a series of growing incidents.
Increasing enrichment at its Fordo underground facility puts Tehran at a technical pace of 90 percent weapons, while pressuring President-elect Joe Biden to negotiate quickly. The Iranian confiscation of MT Hankuk Chemi is taking place as a South Korean diplomat had to travel to the Islamic Republic to discuss the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets in Seoul.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared to acknowledge Tehran’s interest in capitalizing on the situation in a tweet about its nuclear enrichment.
“Our measures are fully reversible after FULL compliance by ALL,” he wrote.
At Fordo, Iranian nuclear scientists under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors loaded centrifuges with more than 130 kilograms (285 pounds) of weakly enriched uranium to be spun up to 20%, said Kazem Gharibabadi, the representative Iran’s permanent membership of the UN Atomic Energy Agency. .
The IAEA later described the Fordo configuration as three sets of two interconnected waterfalls, consisting of 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges – Iran’s first-generation centrifuges. A waterfall is a group of centrifuges that work together to enrich uranium faster.
Iranian state television quoted government spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying that President Hassan Rouhani had ordered production to begin. It came after his parliament passed a bill, later approved by a constitutional watchdog, that aims to increase enrichment to put pressure on Europe to offer relief from sanctions.
The US State Department has criticized Iran’s move as a “clear attempt to increase its nuclear extortion campaign”.
“The United States and the rest of the international community will evaluate Iran’s actions,” the State Department said. “We are confident that the IAEA will monitor and report any new Iranian nuclear activities.”
Iran informed the IAEA of its plans to increase enrichment to 20% last week.
Iran’s decision to start enrichment with 20% purity almost a decade ago sparked an Israeli strike targeting its nuclear facilities, tensions that eased only with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
A resumption of enrichment by 20% could find that the return of bremsmanship. Already, a November attack on Tehran blaming Israel has killed an Iranian scientist who founded the country’s military nuclear program two decades earlier.
On behalf of Israel, which has its own undeclared nuclear weapons program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Iran’s enrichment decision, saying it “can be explained in no other way than the continued achievement of its goal of developing a military nuclear program.” .
“Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Tehran has long maintained its nuclear program. The US State Department says that until the end of last year, it “continued to assess that Iran is not currently engaged in key activities associated with the design and development of a nuclear weapon”. This reflects previous reports by US intelligence agencies and the IAEA, although experts warn that Iran currently has enough low-enriched uranium for at least two nuclear weapons if it chooses to pursue them.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard confiscated MT Hankuk Chemi, with photos released later, showing his vessels next to the tanker. Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed the tanker off the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday.
The ship had traveled from a petrochemical plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The ship is carrying a chemical carrier that includes methanol, according to data analysis firm Refinitiv.
Iran claimed to have confiscated the ship over it, which would have polluted the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the bay through which 20% of the world’s oil passes.
The US State Department has called for the immediate release of the tank, accusing Iran of threatening “rights and freedoms of navigation” in the Persian Gulf to “extort the international community to ease the pressure of sanctions”.
Calls to the listed owner of the ship, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. in Busan, South Korea, did not receive a response Monday after business hours. South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted an anonymous company official as denying Iran’s claim that the ship had polluted the water.
The captain “asked why we should go and be examined and received no answer,” Yonhap was quoted as saying.
In recent months, Iran has tried to step up pressure on South Korea to release frozen assets of about $ 7 billion in oil sales earned before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the country’s oil exports. The head of Iran’s central bank recently announced that the country is trying to use funds tied up in a South Korean bank to buy coronavirus vaccines through COVAX, an international program designed to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to participating countries.
South Korea’s foreign ministry has called for the ship’s release, saying in a statement that its crew is safe. The crew included sailors from Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea and Vietnam, according to the Guard. South Korea’s defense ministry said it had sent its anti-piracy unit to the Strait of Hormuz, a 4,400-ton destroyer with about 300 soldiers.
Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said authorities were monitoring the situation. Last year, Iran similarly confiscated a British-flagged oil tanker and held it for months after one of its oil tankers was detained off the coast of Gibraltar.
The incidents coincide with the anniversary of the US drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. Iran has responded by launching ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq, injuring dozens of US soldiers. Tehran also accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane that night, killing all 176 people on board.
As the anniversary approached and feared possible Iranian retaliation, the United States sent B-52 bombers over the region and ordered a nuclear-powered submarine in the Persian Gulf.
US Defense Secretary-General Christopher Miller said late Sunday that he had changed his mind about sending the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier home from the Middle East and would keep the service ship instead. He cited Iranian threats against Trump and other US government officials as a reason for the redistribution, without further explanation.
Last week, sailors discovered a wrecked mine stranded on an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf off Iraq, near the Iranian border, as it was preparing to transfer fuel to another oil company owned by a New York-listed company. No one has claimed responsibility for the mining operation, although it comes after a series of similar attacks in 2019 near the Hormuz Strait, which the US Navy blamed on Iran. Tehran has denied involvement.
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Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel, Hyung-jin Kim from Seoul and Robert Burns and Matthew Lee from Washington contributed.