Iran received increased surveillance from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA/IAEA) against its decision to significantly increase the production rate of highly enriched uranium, according to a confidential report of the UN agency obtained by Agence France-Presse today.

Tehran had announced in early December that it had begun supplying new centrifuges to the Fordow facility (center) “mainly with the end result of significantly increasing the production rate of enriched uranium up to 60%,” the IAEA recalled.

It is expected to exceed the 34 kg per month against 4.7 kg recorded during the last inspection period.

In the face of these “changes”, the Vienna, Austria-based agency had called for a re-evaluation of its inspections to ensure that “the facility is not in use” in order to “produce uranium at a degree of enrichment greater than that which has been declared” and that “there is a derogation from the declared nuclear materials».

“Iran accepted the agency’s request to increase frequency and intensity” of its surveillance measures, the IAEA writes in this report.

The 60% threshold is close to the 90% required to build a nuclear weapon. The deal reached in Vienna in 2015 by Tehran and major powers, now an empty shell as negotiations to revive it in 2022 failed, set a ceiling of 3.67%.

Iran defends its right to a nuclear program that has no military purposes, but is mainly intended for energy production, and denies that it wants to acquire a nuclear weapon.

However, it has clearly violated its commitments by reacting to the withdrawal of the US in 2018 from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the reinstatement of heavy sanctions.

This new boost to Iran’s nuclear program follows the adoption in November of a resolution by the IAEA’s board of governors condemning Tehran’s lack of cooperation regarding its nuclear activities.

“It is a clear message in response to what (the Iranians) feel is pressure“, the director general of the UN agency, Mr Raphael Grossi.

OR France, Germany and Britain expressed their strong “concern” on Tuesday, calling the Islamic Republic “to put an immediate end to its nuclear escalations”.

In a letter to the UN Security Council, the three countries indicated the possibility of resorting to a mechanism to reinstate sanctions against Iran “in order to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon».

The EU also today condemned this “new step in escalation”. “It is extremely concerning, especially because “the increase concerns” uranium that has been enriched to a level close to military grades“, said the representative of the diplomatic service of the EU, Anwar El Anouni.