TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran was poised today to begin work on advanced centrifuges that will enrich uranium faster as the 2015 nuclear deal unravels further and a last-minute French proposal offering a $15-billion line of credit to compensate Iran for not being able to sell its crude oil abroad because of U.S. sanctions looked increasingly unlikely.
Meanwhile, Iran released seven crew members from a detained British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in a goodwill gesture and the mariners flew out of Iran, the ships owner said.
Though Iran has yet to say what steps it will take as a deadline it gave Europeans to salvage the deal is to expire Friday. Centrifuges that speed enrichment further shorten the time Iran needs to have enough material available to build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.
Under the deal, which has steadily unraveled after President Donald Trumps unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. from the accord last year, experts thought Iran would need about a year to reach that point.
Irans atomic energy agency was to make an announcement on Saturday detailing its next step, which President Hassan Rouhani described as highly significant, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency and other Iranian media. The details would be unveiled at a press conference in Tehran, the reports said.
The U.S. has continued its effort to choke off Irans crude oil sales abroad. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who continues a whirlwind global diplomatic tour, insists his country will do everything it can to keep those sales going, though he described U.S. sanctions in an angry tweet today as the equivalent of a jail warden.
We will sell our oil, one way or the other, Zarif told Russian broadcaster RT in a recently aired interview. The United States will not be able to prevent that.
Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have been growing since Trumps pullout from the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran agree to limit its uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Trump subsequently re-imposed old sanctions on Iran and created new ones, going as far as targeting Iranian officials like Zarif and Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Meanwhile, mysterious oil tanker attacks struck near the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, attacks that the U.S. blames on Iran. Tehran denies it was involved.
Iran also shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone and seized oil tankers as America deployed nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, advanced fighter jets and more troops to the region.
The U.S. has sought to seize an Iranian oil tanker, the Adrian Darya-1, now thought by analysts to be off the Syrian coast despite a pledge by Tehran that its cargo wasnt bound there.
In his speech late Wednesday, Rouhani said Tehran would soon begin work on research and development of all kinds of centrifuges that enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.
Iran has begun break limits of the deal, such as just creeping beyond its 3.67%-enrichment limit and its stockpile rules. Using advanced centrifuges speeds up enrichment and Iranian officials already have raised the idea of enriching to 20% a small technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Iran long has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denies it seeks an atomic bomb. However, Western nations have pointed to previous Iranian research into a weapons program that U.N. experts say largely ended in 2003.
France in recent days had pushed the idea of offering Iran a $15 billion credit to sell its oil, though details remain unclear and it appeared the deal wouldnt come through before Irans deadline Friday.
