The U.S. and Iran have began talks concerning the latter’s controversial nuclear programme. After Donald Trump, in his first time period, unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal, formally referred to as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran had maintained that it will not maintain direct talks with the U.S. There had been a number of rounds of oblique talks in Vienna after Joe Biden turned President in 2021, however these efforts had been inconclusive. Iran, on this interval, considerably accelerated its nuclear programme.
In current months, Iran got here beneath rising stress — its so-called axis of resistance has been humbled by Israel, it misplaced an ally in Syria, and its economic system is in deep trouble. As the warmth on Iran rose, Mr. Trump supplied dialogue. “We can’t let Iran have a nuclear bomb,” he stated final week in a joint press convention on the White House with the visiting Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Faced with the risk of war in a second of weak point, Iran has agreed to interact the Americans diplomatically.
Iran, a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), ceased to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after the 1979 revolution. Ever since, the Islamic Republic confronted allegations that it has been pursuing a clandestine nuclear programme. In 2022, the IAEA launched an investigation into Iran’s alleged nuclear actions. In November 2011, the company reported that Iran appeared to have labored on designing an atom bomb. Iran has at all times maintained that its nuclear programme was for peaceable functions. But its critics pointed to its stockpile of extremely enriched uranium as proof of the nation’s clandestine designs.
Iran’s uranium enrichment story, nevertheless, is a protracted, advanced one.
In pure settings, U-235, the uranium isotope that may maintain nuclear fission chain reactions, makes up round 0.7% of uranium. The relaxation is U-238. Before its use in nuclear settings, uranium is enriched to extend the focus of U-235. Both low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) are enriched as much as 20% to be used in several sorts of nuclear reactors. Highly enriched uranium (HEU) refers to enrichment past 20%. Weapons-grade uranium is often 90% or extra.
Centrifuges are the world’s enrichment expertise of selection. These containers spin their contents at a number of thousand revolutions per minute. Because U-238 is barely denser than U-235, the centrifugal drive pushes it extra in direction of the periphery. The feed is uranium hexafluoride (UF6) fuel. Enrichment amenities have a whole lot or 1000’s of centrifuges working in cascades, with every cascade accepting as its feed the output of the earlier cascade. At every step, more-enriched UF6 is handed to the subsequent whereas the remainder, referred to as tails, is recycled or processed for long-term storage. Each centrifuge’s enrichment service is measured in separative work models (SWUs). Depending on the centrifuge design, producing 1 kg of weapons-grade uranium from pure uranium might have round 250 SWUs.
In 2006, Iran enriched uranium to about 3.5% utilizing 164 IR-1 centrifuges, every of which delivers round 0.8 SWU/12 months. In 2010, the IAEA confirmed that Iran had enriched uranium to 19.75% utilizing IR-1 centrifuges on the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant and in 2012 on the Fordow plant. By 2013, the nation had a stockpile of about 7.6 tonnes of 3.5% LEU and 0.2 tonnes of 19.75% LEU fuel.
Terms of the unique deal
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), between Tehran, the 5 everlasting members of the UN Security Council, and the European Union, supplied a short-lived answer to the nuclear disaster. The deal promised to take away worldwide sanctions on Iran in return for the nation eradicating most of its centrifuges, limiting enrichment to three.67%, and capping its LEU stockpile at 300 kg, amongst different measures. Iran was totally compliant with the phrases when Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of it in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. Iran has since accelerated its nuclear programme breaching the settlement, which noticed the nation enriching uranium to 60% at its vegetation.
This is essential. If 126 SWUs are required to complement uranium from 0.7% such that it yields 1 kg of 60% HEU plus 0.3% tails, solely 2.2 SWUs are required to complement 60% HEU to 1 kg of 90% weapons-grade degree plus 20% tails (which is increased at increased enrichment). In different phrases, 60% HEU can have accomplished greater than 90% of the work required to supply weapons-grade uranium. According to some estimates, Iran has round 70 kg of 60% HEU, ample for 5 to eight nuclear warheads.
While the quantity of SWUs decreases with extra enrichment, the power price skyrockets. But Iran’s dedication suggests the centrifuges is not going to need for energy.
Iran Watch has estimated that every one centrifuges “presently installed in production mode” in Iran may produce 168-269 kg of 60% high-enriched uranium in “up to two weeks” (assuming 1% tails and 54% feed enrichment). The time to supply sufficient U-235 for one warhead might thus have dropped from round a 12 months throughout the JCPOA to a couple weeks right now.
The IAEA suggests a “significant quantity” of 25 kg per warhead with a blast yield of 20 kilotonnes (to match, Hiroshima was devastated by a yield of 13-16 kilotonnes). Newer designs may have the identical yield with lighter cores. Iran may assemble extra weapons of decrease yield.
Iran’s centrifuges additionally increase questions on how rapidly it will probably assemble a bomb. Post-enrichment, engineers should convert the uranium in UF6 to metallic kind and machine it into the bomb’s core. Second, they should develop explosives, detonators, arming and firing methods, neutron initiators, explosive lenses, and launch and re-entry autos. And they should conduct checks. The second set could be completed in parallel with enrichment, nevertheless. According to knowledge from the IAEA and the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, amongst others, Iran ran a programme in 1999-2003 throughout which it additionally targeted on these actions.
Ramifications of talks failure
Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs scholar Hui Zhang has written that if Iran’s steps in direction of its first nuclear weapon are like China’s in 1964, Iran will want “probably less than three weeks” between gaseous weapons-grade uranium and a bomb.
Thus, Iran might be able to develop a deployable warhead in a matter of months if it decides to take action.
As of now there is no such thing as a proof to counsel Iran has made that call. But Iran’s rising stockpile of HEU and shrinking breakout time — the time taken to transform weapons-grade gasoline right into a bomb — have already set alarm bells ringing in Israel. Tel Aviv has made it clear that it’s going to not hesitate to bomb Iran’s nuclear amenities. But for any such transfer, Israel wants America’s assist. Mr. Trump has additionally threatened Iran with army motion. But earlier than that, he desires to attempt the trail of diplomacy. If the talks collapse, there can be bombing, he threatened. “If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that — it’ll be the leader of that.”
Published – April 13, 2025 01:54 am IST
