IAEA finds uranium enriched to 84pc in Iran

Reuters :
The UN nuclear watchdog has found uranium enriched to 84% in Iran – very close to weapons grade – diplomats said on Monday, while the watchdog said that it was in talks with Tehran about recent findings there.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60% purity since April 2021. Three months ago, it started enriching to 60% at a second site, Fordow, which is dug into a mountain. Weapons grade is around 90%. Two diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iran’s nuclear facilities, had detected uranium enriched to 84%, confirming an initial report late on Sunday by Bloomberg News.
“The issue is whether it was a blip in the reconfigured cascades or deliberate. The agency has asked Iran for an explanation,” one of the diplomats said.
Earlier this month, the IAEA criticised Iran for failing to inform it of a “substantial” change to the interconnections between the two cascades, or clusters, of centrifuges enriching uranium to up to 60% at Fordow. Several diplomats said the change meant Iran could quickly switch to a higher enrichment level.
Those rearranged cascades are the ones the first diplomat was referring to.
The United States in 2018 pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that had lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear activities.
Iran responded to the reimposition of US sanctions by breaching those restrictions and going well beyond them, to the point that IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said the deal is now an “empty shell”.