Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi clarified today that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium up to 20%, denying widely conveyed reports that the Islamic republic has ceased adding to its stockpile of 20% purity uranium:
“Twenty percent uranium and nuclear plates are being produced inside the country and there has never been a halt in the production trend,” Salehi was quoted as saying.
“Nuclear plates for Tehran reactor are produced inside the country, and the needed fuel assembly is allocated for the reactor each month,” said Salehi.
Speaking Monday on a conference call hosted by The Israel Project, Dr. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, assessed that Iran could use such a stockpile to sprint across the nuclear finish line in as little as two weeks.
Conservative MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini had been cited by as the source of the original rumor, and now claims he was misquoted. The chair of the Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Allaeddine Boroujerdi, had previously denied suggestions of a halt.
The original suggestion had raised hopes in the West. Per The New York Times:
Mr. Naqavi Hosseini is the first lawmaker of such stature to make such a statement. If his report is true, then Iran may be edging closer to accepting one of the main demands of world powers, that it suspend the enrichment of uranium, especially up to 20 percent.
The dynamic – in which optimistic coverage produced in Western outlets was quickly followed by an explicit Iranian walkback – repeats a pattern that has become almost routine since the election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
A Twitter account reportedly linked to Rouhani generated what the Washington Post described as a “frenzied response” in September when it was used to wish Jews a happy Jewish New Year. Rouhani’s office subsequently denied any connection to the post. A little later Iranian citizens were for the first time in years able to directly access social media networks, generating speculation from Western journalists that “Iran’s Berlin Wall of internet censorship crumbling.” The ban was reimposed a day later.
In September a German paper published rumors that Rouhani was prepared to shut down Iran’s underground enrichment bunker at Fordow, a suggestion that regime outlets swatted down.
Even walkbacks on Iranian willingness to negotiate over its 20% enriched stock are not new. In early April the Associated Press quoted Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani suggesting that Iran may make concessions on uranium enriched to that level, only to see itself called out by name and condemned by regime figures for misquoting Larijani.
[Photo: ARIRANG NEWS / YouTube]