Alwaght- Iran started testing the next-generation IR-9 centrifuge for enriching uranium, which is 50 times more powerful than the IR-1 centrifuge, spokesman of The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said on Tuesday.
Behrooz Kamalvandi told the state-run news agency ISNA"There is progress in uranium enrichment, we have started mechanical tests of the IR-9 centrifuge with [an enrichment capacity] of 50 SWU."
Reports suggested earlier that Iran had begun to enrich uranium using the fourth cluster of advanced IR-2m centrifuges at the country's main nuclear facility.
In 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China plus Germany, signed the JCPOA, which was ratified in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Three years later, however, Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the JCPOA and unleashed what his team called a “maximum pressure" campaign with the stated objective of forcing Iran to negotiate “a better agreement.”
The Islamic Republic refused to bow down to the pressure and adopted instead a “maximum resistance” policy, which includes economic measures to weather the bans as well as reducing Tehran's commitments under the JCPOA.
The new US administration, under President Joe Biden, has claimed it is willing to rejoin the JCPOA, but conditioned the move on Tehran’s resumption of its obligations.
Tehran says Washington, as the first party that reneged on its commitments, should take the first step towards the JCPOA’s revival and unconditionally remove all the sanctions in a verifiable manner.
