Iran's stockpile of highly-enriched uranium rises fourfold

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors reported that Iran increased its stockpile of uranium enriched close to the levels needed for weapons and was expanding its production capacity. It also continued to restrict monitoring of facilities and an investigation into allegedly undeclared activities.

It’s the first IAEA report issued since hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi assumed the presidency last month.

“Iran’s failure to respond to the agency’s requests for access to its monitoring equipment is seriously compromising the agency’s technical capability,” the IAEA wrote in a 16-page restricted document seen by Bloomberg.

“The agency’s confidence that it can maintain continuity of knowledge is declining over time and has now significantly further declined,” the IAEA warned. “This confidence will continue to decline unless th situation is immediately rectified by Iran.”

Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium rose fourfold to 10 kilograms over the last three months while its inventory of material enriched to 20% rose by about a third to 84.3 kilograms. The overall stockpile fell as Iranian engineers shifted low-enriched inventory into feeds intended to produce material at higher levels of purity, according to the agency.