DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) As Iran prepares to surpass limits set by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, each step it takes narrows the time the countrys leaders would need to have enough highly enriched uranium for an atomic bomb if they chose to build one.
The United Nations says Iran has so far respected the deals terms. But by Thursday, Iran says it will have over 660 pounds of low-enriched uranium in its possession, which would mean it had broken out of the atomic accord.
European countries that are still a part of the nuclear accord face a July 7 deadline imposed by Tehran to offer a better deal and long-promised relief from U.S. sanctions, or Iran will also begin enriching its uranium closer to weapons-grade levels.
Breaking the stockpile limit by itself doesnt radically change the one year experts say Iran would need to have enough material for a bomb. Coupled with increasing enrichment, however, it begins to close that window and hamper any diplomatic efforts at saving the accord.
I worry about the snowball effect, said Corey Hinderstein, a vice president at the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative who once led the U.S. Energy Departments Iran task force. Iran now takes a step which puts Europe and the other members of the deal in an even-tougher position.
Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran agreed to have less than 661 pounds of uranium enriched to a maximum of 3.67%. Previously, Iran enriched as high as 20%, which is a short technical step away from reaching weapons-grade levels. It also held up to 22,046 pounds of the higher-enriched uranium.
Experts who spoke to The Associated Press described the enrichment and stockpile limits in the deal as a sort of sliding scale. Balancing both elements keeps Iran a year away from having enough material for a nuclear weapon, something Iran denies it seeks despite Western concerns about its program.
At the time of the deal, which was agreed to by Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain, experts believed Iran needed anywhere from several weeks to three months to have enough material for a bomb.
However, the stockpile limit isnt an immediate worry from a nonproliferation standpoint, experts say.
Going over the limit doesnt immediately signify that Iran has enough material that could if further enriched and processed be used in a nuclear weapon, said Tom Plant, the director of proliferation and nuclear policy at Londons Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.
It does mean that it builds up reserves of material that could in the future support a more rapid push to the higher levels of enrichment that are suitable for weapons use, Plant said.
The danger comes July 7, if Iran begins enriching uranium to higher levels.
If Iran begins stockpiling uranium enriched to higher levels, the breakout timeline would decrease more quickly, said Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
Both Davenport and Ian Stewart, a professor at Kings College London who runs its antiproliferation studies program called Project Alpha, worry about miscalculations from Iran, the U.S. or the West amid the brinksmanship.
This highlights the real tension at play in Iran: doing enough to satisfy Iranian hard-liners while also maintaining EU, Chinese and Russian support for the deal, Stewart said. Theres a real risk of miscalculating, not least because its not clear at which point the EU will have to back away from a noncompliant Iran.
