Biden says Iranian enrichment to 60% unhelpful, but glad about talks

Washington - Iran’s chief negotiator said that Iran would activate 1,000 advanced centrifuge machines at Natanz.

US President Joe Biden on Friday called Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 60 per cent purity unhelpful but said he is pleased Tehran is still in indirect talks with Washington about both countries resuming compliance with the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal.

Iran on Friday said it had begun enriching uranium to 60 per cent, its highest level ever and a step closer to the 90 per cent that is weapons grade, at its Natanz plant, where an explosion occurred earlier this week that Tehran blamed on Israel.

“We do not support and do not think it’s at all helpful that Iran is saying it’s going to move to enrich to 60 percent,” Biden told reporters in Washington during a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

“We are, though, nonetheless pleased that Iran has continued to agree to engage in discussions - indirect discussions - with us and with our partners on how we move forward and what is needed to allow us to move back into the (nuclear deal) ... without us making concessions that we are just not willing to make,” Biden added.

Iran had in recent months already raised enrichment to 20 per cent purity, a level at which uranium is considered to be highly enriched and a significant step toward weapons-grade.

A 2015 deal with world powers to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions in return for the lifting of sanctions had capped the level of purity at 3.67 per cent. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

“We are producing about 9 grams of 60 per cent enriched uranium an hour,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told state television.

“But we have to work on arrangements ... to drop it to 5 grams per hour. But then we will simultaneously produce 20 per cent (uranium),” Salehi said.

Earlier, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iranian scientists had successfully started enriching 60 per cent uranium at 40 minutes past midnight.

“The will of the Iranian nation makes miracles that thwart any conspiracy,” Qalibaf wrote on Twitter.