Report on nuke-deal breaches notes secret Iranian site

Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, left, talks to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, right, and Malta's Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela during an European Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting at the Europa building in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. European Union foreign ministers are discussing ways to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact after the Islamic Republic began enrichment work at its Fordo power plant. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, left, talks to Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, right, and Malta's Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela during an European Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting at the Europa building in Brussels, Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. European Union foreign ministers are discussing ways to keep the Iran nuclear deal intact after the Islamic Republic began enrichment work at its Fordo power plant. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

VIENNA -- Uranium particles of man-made origin have been discovered at a site in Iran not declared to the United Nations, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday as it confirmed a litany of violations of the 2015 nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran has begun enriching uranium at a heavily fortified installation inside a mountain, is increasing its stockpile of processed uranium, and is exceeding the allowable enrichment levels.

All of those steps are prohibited under the agreement Iran reached with world powers to prevent it from building a bomb.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But since the U.S. under President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact last year and imposed new sanctions, Iran has been openly stepping up its violations of the deal in an attempt to pressure the other major signatories -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- to help it economically by such means as facilitating the sale of Iranian oil.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report came as European Union members met to decide how to keep the deal alive.

"We now need to make it clear to Iran that it can't continue like this," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters.

Those efforts became more complicated after the agency reported that its inspectors confirmed traces of uranium "at a location in Iran not declared to the agency." The assertion appeared to confirm allegations made by the U.S. and Israel of a secret nuclear warehouse.

The agency did not identify the site in the confidential quarterly report, which was distributed to member states and seen by The Associated Press.

In its report, the agency also confirmed that the centrifuges are at work at Iran's Fordo facility -- an underground site ringed by anti-aircraft guns -- and that enrichment of uranium has been going on there since Saturday.

The nuclear deal had called for Fordo to become a research center. It is now home to more than 1,000 centrifuges.

In addition, the watchdog agency said that as of Nov. 3, Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium had grown to 820.78 pounds, up from the 532.63 pounds reported on Aug. 19 and well past the 447-pound limit under the nuclear deal.

The agency said Iran continues to enrich uranium up to 4.5% -- above the 3.67% allowed by the nuclear deal, though still far below weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Uranium enriched to 4.5% can be used at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant, where a second reactor is under construction.

The biggest concern is that as Iran enriches more uranium over time, it will begin to narrow the so-called breakout period that's needed to have enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb -- should it choose to build one. Analysts had put that time at a year, under the restrictions of the 2015 nuclear deal.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday urged Iran to stick with the deal, saying it could open up international arms sales for the Islamic Republic next year.

The day before his speech, Rouhani faced some heckling from a crowd of hard-liners, despite his announcing the discovery of a 53 billion-barrel oil field in the country.

On Monday, he made a point to stress that "by continuing the nuclear deal, we will reach a huge political, defensive and security goal."

"If we save the nuclear deal, Iran's arms embargo will be lifted and we can buy weapons or sell our weapons to the world. This is one of the deal's significant impacts," Rouhani said.

Under the deal, a United Nations-imposed arms embargo on Iran is to be lifted in October 2020, five years after the accord's adoption.

The end of the weapons embargo already worries the Trump administration. The State Department runs a countdown clock on its website to the time when Iran could be allowed to access the international weapons market. The website also notes that Qassem Soleimani, the sanctioned head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's expeditionary Quds Force, would be able to travel freely abroad if the measure is allowed to expire.

"Time is running out on international agreements restraining the Iranian regime," the State Department says. "This could start a new arms race in the Middle East and further destabilize the region and the world."

TALKS IN EUROPE

At talks in Brussels on Monday, EU foreign ministers affirmed their support for the 2015 pact. The top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany later met for further discussions in Paris.

The three said they were "extremely concerned" that Iran had restarted enrichment at Fordo, and they called on Tehran to reverse course and comply with the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the ministers underlined their "full commitment to the agreement that remains crucial for our security, even if it's increasingly difficult to preserve it. We will continue our efforts to have a full implementation of the agreement."

A joint commission meeting of all the signatories is likely to be held in the coming days.

Iran has been open about its violations of the deal in recent months, announcing the moves before making them and allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to verify them.

Speaking at a U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Eshagh Al Habib, insisted that his country's moves are all "reversible."

They provide "opportunity for remaining [nuclear deal] participants either to take serious practical steps to preserve the [deal] or, along with the U.S., accept the full responsibility for any possible consequences," he said.

The head of Iran's nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Monday that his country is producing much more low-enriched uranium.

Salehi said Iran is now turning out at least 12 pounds per day, compared with about 1 pound previously, thanks to the Fordo centrifuges.

"We want to preserve the [deal], but Iran must finally return to its commitments and comply with them, otherwise we will reserve the right to use all mechanisms that are set out in the agreement," Maas said.

"It's a great agreement, and we need to keep it alive," Slovakia's foreign minister, Miroslav Lajcak, told reporters. But it remains unclear what more the EU can do as Iran's economy buckles under the weight of sanctions, apart from renewing the bloc's appeals for restraint and dialogue.

The Europeans have poured a lot of cash and credibility into ensuring the deal stays afloat. A safeguard was built to keep money flowing to Tehran, but it has not been effective. A system is in place to protect European companies doing business in Iran from U.S. sanctions, even though many remain reluctant because they fear being shut out of the more lucrative American market if they do.

One option for the other foreign powers is to trigger the dispute mechanism in the nuclear agreement, which would start the clock on a 30-day period in which to resolve the problem.

If the problem persists, then the matter could be taken before the U.N. Security Council and could result in the "snapback" of sanctions that had been lifted under the deal.

"We affirm our readiness to consider all mechanisms in the [nuclear deal], including the dispute resolution mechanism, to resolve the issues," the EU members of the agreement said after their Paris meeting.

Information for this article was contributed by Ilan Ben Zion, Edith M. Lederer, Lorne Cook, Geir Moulson, Mehdi Fattahi and Amir Vahdat of The Associated Press.

A Section on 11/12/2019

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