Iran announced on Wednesday that it has built a new factory that can produce rotors for up to 60 centrifuges a day, escalating its confrontation with the United States in wake of its pullout from the 2015 nuclear agreement.
The announcement came a month after supreme leader Ali Khamenei said he had ordered agencies to prepare to increase uranium enrichment capacity if a nuclear deal with world powers falls apart after Washington’s withdrawal from the pact.
Under the terms of the agreement, which was also signed by Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The other signatories have been scrambling to save the accord, arguing it offers the best way to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb.
Iran has said it will wait to see what the other powers can do, but has signaled it is ready to get its enrichment activities back on track. It has regularly said its nuclear work is just for electricity generation and other peaceful projects.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the new factory did not in itself break the terms of the agreement.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the organization is aware of the announcement but has “no comment.”
“Instead of building this factory in the next seven or eight years, we built it during the negotiations but have not started it,” Salehi, said, according to state media.
“Of course, the [supreme leader] was completely informed and we gave him the necessary information at the time. And now that he has given the order this factory has started all its work.”
The factory would have the capacity to build rotors for up to 60 IR-6 centrifuges per day, he added.
Last month, Salehi announced that Iran has begun working on infrastructure for building advanced centrifuges at its Natanz facility.
