Iran has boosted its production of highly enriched uranium after a slowdown earlier this year, the U.N.\u2019s nuclear watchdog said in a report on Tuesday, according to Reuters and the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60%, which is reaching the 90% needed for weapons, at its Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) in the Natanz complex and at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP).<\/p>\n
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency\u00a0(IAEA), said in the report that Iran had \u2018increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023.\u2019<\/p>\n
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital they are \u2018greatly concerned\u2019 by the report, and that Iran has \u2018no credible civilian justification for enrichment up to 60%.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Iran\u2019s nuclear escalation is all the more concerning at a time when Iran as well as Iran-backed militant groups and Iran\u2019s proxies continue their dangerous and destabilizing activities in the region,\u2019 the State Department spokesperson said. \u2018This includes the latest drone attack against U.S. personnel in Iraq, Houthi attacks against commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea as well as Iran\u2019s latest armed-drone attack against a chemical tanker in the Indian ocean.\u2019<\/p>\n
The State Department said Iran must fully cooperate with the IAEA so its nuclear activities can be verified and make sure there is no diversion or misuse of nuclear material.<\/p>\n
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said its inspectors had verified the increased rate of production since the end of November at the facilities to about 9 kilograms per month, up from 3 kilograms per month since June and representing a return to earlier levels of production, according to the Associated Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Enriching uranium means increasing the percentage of uranium-235, the isotope of uranium that can be used in nuclear fission.<\/p>\n
Weapons require 90% purity, but the level Iran has reached far exceeds the 20% it produced\u00a0prior to the 2015 nuclear deal, meaning the country has far exceeded the 3.67% cap the deal had mandated.\u00a0Iran gradually abandoned those limits after the U.S. withdrew from the accord and imposed sanctions.<\/p>\n
If enriched further, Iran could make\u00a0three nuclear bombs, according to the IAEA\u2019s theoretical definition, and more at lower enrichment levels, Reuters reports. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful with treating and preventing the spread of cancer as one of its objectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many diplomats believed the slowdown, which had begun by June, was the result of secret talks between the United States and Iran that led to the release of U.S. citizens held in Iran earlier this year, according to Reuters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The news comes two weeks after Iran\u2019s foreign minister warned that the war in Gaza could lead to a \u2018big explosion\u2019 of conflicts in the Middle East, with\u00a0Lebanon and Yemen already \u2018involved\u2019\u00a0and more countries poised to join.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Militant groups have launched a\u00a0at least 90 attacks against U.S. bases\u00a0and troops in the Middle East since Oct. 17. Meanwhile, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, which control a large part of Yemen, have also attacked several commercial vessels\u00a0with drones and ballistic missiles in recent weeks leading to heightened tensions in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Christmas Day, three U.S. service members were injured in Iraq when Iran-affiliated Kataib Hezbollah\u00a0terrorists attacked Erbil Air Base, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin.<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Peter Aitken, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Iran has boosted its production of highly enriched uranium after a slowdown earlier this year, the U.N.\u2019s nuclear watchdog said in a report on Tuesday, according to Reuters and the Associated Press. Iran is currently enriching uranium up to 60%, which is reaching the 90% needed for weapons, at its Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}