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Iran testing new powerful centrifuges

Iran says that its IR-8 centrifuges enrich uranium 20 times faster than the IR-1 centrifuges it currently uses.

Iran is testing newly-designed centrifuges that are 15 times more powerful than the ones currently used by the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced that the country’s experts are now testing new centrifuges.

“At present, works on IR2 and IR2M centrifuges has almost ended but they need to go through a number of more tests,” Behrouz Kamalvandi stated on Wednesday, according to Iran’s Fars news.

He underlined Iran’s capability to resume the frozen part of its nuclear activities if the P5+1 powers don’t hold up their end of the nuclear deal, and warned that if such a thing happens, the speed at which Iran can bring its frozen operations back into action would “surprise the opposite party.”

“They have seen how smart our scientists are and we are not therefore concerned about returning to the past conditions and capacities and we are able to develop even more than the past,” Kamalvandi threatened.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani issued similar threats last week.

Under the nuclear deal’s terms, Iran was left with some nuclear capabilities useful for scientific research and medicine, while its abilities to develop a nuclear bomb were supposedly curbed by the deal’s terms.

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Asked about talks with Russia over the supply of Iran’s heavy water, he said serious talks are underway with Moscow, while a number of other countries, including the Europeans, have expressed willingness to purchase Iran’s heavy water supplies.

Kamalvandi also said that Iran will soon receive the first cargo of uranium supplied to the country after sending its excessive uranium enriched to the purity level of 20% to the foreign states based on the last July nuclear deal.

Iran in January unveiled the latest generation of its centrifuges that are 15 times more powerful than its currently operating IR1. While the first generation of its centrifuges had the enrichment capacity of 1 to 1.5 SUWs, the IR8 enjoys the capacity of 15 to 20 SUWs.

Also in December, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani announced that the country will gain access to modern nuclear technology to upgrade its centrifuges.

He reiterated that the quality of centrifuges is more important than their quantity, and said, “The new generation of Iran’s centrifuges will be of a much higher quality as compared with the previous ones.”

By: World Israel News Staff