Iran can well speed up nuclear activities, including enrichment: Official

An Iranian nuclear official says Iran is capable of multiplying the pace of its nuclear activities — especially uranium enrichment — compared to the time when an international deal on its nuclear program had not yet been concluded, implying that that will happen if the United States violates the deal.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, who is the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Wednesday that the body had reported to the country’s highest authorities about its capacity to increase the pace of nuclear activities to several times the speed at which they were underway prior to the deal.

Kamalvandi said if the sanctions waivers are not extended, Iran “will naturally take necessary measures.”

While he did not link potential increased Iranian nuclear activity to the US violation of the deal, that seemed to be the message of his Wednesday remarks.

“Of course,” he said, “the speed, and the scale and percentage of enrichment as well as other activities would be dependent on what authorities would decide... What matters is the capacity to implement major decisions, which we enjoy at the AEOI.”

Kamalvandi also referred to a recent telephone conversation between his boss, AEOI Director Ali Akbar Salehi, and the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, in which Salehi had had warned Iran would take unspecified measures on the day after the US potentially violates the deal.

SS