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Iran says it is rolling out 1,000 additional centrifuges

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) –
Having just announced it plans to enrich uranium at a level far above that allowed by the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Iranian regime said Tuesday that it is installing 1,000 additional centrifuges and increasing its supply of yellowcake, a uranium concentrate powder used for enrichment.

The Iranian regime informed the International Atomic Energy Agency over the weekend that it intends to enrich uranium to 20%, a percentage far beyond the 3.67% allowed under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action deal. In any event, Iran has already violated the agreement by enriching to 4.5% purity, the Washington Examiner reports.

In a statement to Iranian media Tuesday, Iran’s nuclear agency chief Ali Akbar Salehi said: “One thousand centrifuges are being installed inside the country. We are currently installing 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges, but two cascades are installed and working.”

“Until three or four years ago, we used to produce an average of four to five tons of yellowcake, but for the past two years, we have increased the production of yellowcake to 30 tons,” Salehi added. “This year, the production of yellowcake will be between 35 and 40 tons, which means that we have 8-folded the production of yellowcake.”

Responding to the Iranian announcement on Tuesday, the US Treasury Department said Iran is led by a “corrupt” regime that is intent on using the country’s metal industry to create wealth for its leaders and to finance “a range of nefarious activities, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, support for foreign terrorist groups, and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad.”