Iran Focus
London, 24 Aug – On Monday August 22 the (IAEO) made remarks that demonstrate that the regime still plans to acquire nuclear bomb despite the nuclear agreement it reached with the six world powers and the economic and political concessions it received.
Ali Akbar Salehi repeated the threats made by the regime in an interview with state-run network. In the same manner as Javad Zarif, the regime foreign minister, and Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, he emphasized that, “Our highest priority is to preserve Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” as well as, “We worked very hard to achieve JCPOA, and did not achieve it easily to lose it easily.” However, Salehi added, “We are able to resume 20 percent-enrichment in at most five days at Fordow. Maintaining Fordow facility is an advantage of JCPOA.”
He warned, “This action sends various technical and professional messages, and the other party understands that message,” and continued, “We will launch Arak heavy water reactor in a few months because a concrete with few centimeters in diameter and 2-3 meters in length has been poured on some pipes outside of the reactor. We can remove the existing pipes and put new pipes in place.”
The JCPOA allowed freedom of research, but Salehi said,”According to JCPOA, we can do research on advanced centrifuges … We now have two very advanced IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges. Their capacity is 10 times and 24 times of that of IR-1. We also took a lot of long steps in the area of nuclear propeller,” he added. “Of course, this is a long-term project of 10-15 years that we should look at, but we work hard on it … only four to five countries have this technology.”
“In the area of exploration and mining things are going well too… The most strategic part of it (the nuclear program) is to supply raw materials because if raw materials like uranium are not available, it will ineffective regardless of how much progress we have made,” said the head of the Atomic Energy Agency of the Iranian regime.
He also claimed that in addition to exploration and mining, “we are working hard” on “a nuclear propeller with various military and commercial applications,” on which “the parliament emphasizes”.
Salehi’s remarks are revealing. They show that, despite the restrictions imposed by the nuclear accord, the regime is trying to complete its bomb-making project by abusing the legal framework of the agreement.
Although the regime has threatened to withdraw from the accord, they wish to maintain it, as they will lose a lot and its efforts to acquiring a nuclear bomb will be difficult, and likely impossible.
The implementation of UN Security Council resolutions, prevention of the regime from enriching uranium, and unconditional and unannounced inspections of all its nuclear facilities are supported by the Iranian Resistance.
