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Iran says enriching uranium to 60 per cent is payback for Israel’s ‘evilness’

IRAN said today its decision to escalate its nuclear energy programme was a response to the “evilness” of Israel’s apparent attack on its nuclear facility at Natanz.

Iran is planning to enrich uranium to 60 per cent, its highest ever level for the country. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was restricted to enriching it to 3.67 per cent, though it had ceased compliance with this limit already because of the US decision to withdraw from the agreement. Weapons-grade uranium must be enriched to 90 per cent.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the weekend sabotage of the Natanz underground facility, which damaged centrifuges used to refine uranium, was “apparently a crime by the zionists” and was aimed at derailing talks on reviving the 2015 deal under way in Vienna.

“You wanted to make our hands empty during the talks, but our hands are full,” Mr Rouhani said. 

And he said the centrifuges would be replaced with advanced IR-6 models that would enrich uranium faster than the damaged IR-1 centrifuges: “We cut off both of your hands, one with IR-6 centrifuges and another with 60 per cent.”

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency warned against “any adventurism by the Israeli regime” against its nuclear sites.

“The most recent cowardly act of nuclear terrorism will only strengthen our determination to replaced all centrifuges with even more advanced machines,” he said.

Israel has not commented on the Natanz attack but is widely considered the only plausible culprit. It has a long history of terrorist attacks on Iranian targets and was last week blamed for a mine attack on an Iranian ship in the Red Sea.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a memorial day commemoration that his government’s goal was “the extermination of those who seek to eliminate us.”

Britain, France and Germany has issued a joint statement saying Iran had “no credible civilian need for enrichment at this level.”

Iran has always insisted its nuclear programme is for civilian energy generation. The United States released an intelligence report on Tuesday that maintained Iran was not undertaking “nuclear weapons development activities.”

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