VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has remained within key limits on its nuclear activities imposed by its 2015 deal with world powers, a U.N. atomic watchdog report said on Thursday.

FILE PHOTO: A young boy stands behind an Iranian flag at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, Iran, May, 5, 2010. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo

The report was the third since the January inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the 2015 agreement between six major powers and Iran, reached under his predecessor Barack Obama, “the worst deal ever negotiated” and voiced suspicions Tehran is not fully complying with its terms.

Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium as of Aug. 21 was 88.4 kg (194.89 pounds), well below a 202.8-kg limit, and the level of enrichment did not exceed a 3.67 percent cap, according to the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report sent to IAEA member states and seen by Reuters.

Iran’s stock of so-called heavy water, a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium, stood at 111 tonnes, below a 130-tonne limit agreed by the parties to the deal.

The U.N. watchdog’s report said Iran restarted production of heavy water on June 17 after a maintenance shut-down of the plant which started on April 27.

Iran has breached its heavy water limit slightly on two occasions before quickly shipping some amounts to Oman to get below the threshold.

Asked about when Iran would go above 130 tonnes from the current stock and at a current rate of production that implies a maximum annual output of 20 tonnes, a senior diplomat said it would take Tehran around one year.

Critics of this arrangement have said that merely transporting the chemical abroad and making the excess stock available for potential buyers in Oman is not sufficient. But the parties to the deal have so far agreed with this solution.

In June, shortly after the IAEA’s last report on Iran said its heavy water stock stood at 128.2 tonnes as of mid-May, Tehran said it would ship 20 tonnes abroad, officials told Reuters at the time. Thursday’s report confirmed this has happened.

Uranium enriched to a grade of under 5 percent of purity is considered suitable for civilian nuclear energy, while weapons-grade uranium requires enrichment of around 90 percent. Certain types of plutonium are a prime ingredient of atomic bombs.

The 2015 accord lifted international sanctions against Iran in return for Tehran limiting its nuclear energy programme to ensure it cannot be put to developing an atomic bomb.

The Trump administration has been pushing the IAEA to check military sites in Iran, not just declared nuclear installations, to verify it is not breaching the deal. But for this to happen, U.N. inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.</s>The quarterly report’s findings come amid growing tensions between Iran and US, threatening to torpedo landmark pact.

Iran remains in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal made with the world powers, according to a UN atomic watchdog report.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Thursday that Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium is used for peaceful purposes, and did not exceed the agreed limit of 300kg.

The report was the third since the January inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who has vowed to "dismantle" the "disastrous" accord between Iran and six major powers curtailing Tehran's atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

While US sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear work remain suspended, Washington has ramped up others related to Tehran's support for "terrorism", its ballistic missile programme and its human rights record.

Iran says this contravenes the "spirit" of the deal, an accusation fired back by Trump at Tehran because of its funding and supplying of armed groups "across the region".

The 2015 accord covered only Iran's nuclear activities and the new IAEA quarterly report showed that these remained in compliance.

What the report says

The report did not explicitly say Iran is honouring the deal but mentions no deviations by Tehran, The Associated Press news agency said.

The confidential report obtained by various news organisations said the agency continues to hunt for "undeclared nuclear material and activities".

READ MORE: Iran - Top priority to protect nuclear deal from US

It added that Iran "has not pursued the construction of the Arak ... reactor" - which could give it weapons-grade plutonium - and has not enriched uranium above low purity levels.

The number of enrichment centrifuges also remained as agreed, while Iran's store of heavy water, a reactor coolant, was 111.0 tonnes after it exported 19.1 tonnes to an unnamed country.

Iran has previously inched above an agreed ceiling of 130 tonnes. The plant producing the heavy water was shut for maintenance earlier this year and has now restarted, the IAEA said.

Trump is due in October to certify to Congress whether Iran is sticking to the nuclear deal. In July he told the Wall Street Journal he "would be surprised if they were in compliance".



As well as the US, the hard-fought agreement also includes China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday there is "no alternative" to the deal.

 

Tehran has warned that if the deal falls apart it can ramp up its atomic programme again within five days, giving Trump a second nuclear crisis to add to the standoff over North Korea.</s>The United Nations atomic watchdog says Iran remains in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and five other world powers.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a confidential quarterly report seen by news agencies on August 31, saidThe 2015 deal with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia put limits on Iran's nuclear program in return for the easing of economic sanctions against the country.The latest report was the third since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump on January 20.Trump has called the nuclear agreement, reached under President Barack Obama, "the worst deal ever negotiated."The U.S. State Department is required to notify Congress every 90 days as to whether Iran remains in compliance with the deal., but it assailed Tehran for breaching what it called "the spirit" of the deal by continuing to develop and test ballistic missiles and fast boats.A day later, it imposed new sanctions against 18 individuals and entities over their support for Iran's ballistic-missile program and other military-related activities.According to the IAEA report, Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium as of August 21 was 88.4 kilograms, well below a 202.8-kilogram limit. The level of enrichment did not exceed a 3.67 percent cap, it said.</s>Iran has remained within key limits on its nuclear activities imposed by its 2015 deal with world powers, Reuters reports citing a UN atomic watchdog report on Thursday.

The report was the third since the January inauguration of US President Donald Trump, who has called the 2015 agreement between six major powers and Iran, reached under his predecessor Barack Obama, “the worst deal ever negotiated” and voiced suspicions Tehran is not fully complying with its terms.

Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium as of Aug. 21 was 88.4 kg (194.89 pounds), well below a 202.8-kg limit, and the level of enrichment did not exceed a 3.67 percent cap, according to the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report sent to IAEA member states and seen by Reuters.

Iran’s stock of so-called heavy water, a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium, stood at 111 tons, below a 130-ton limit agreed by the parties to the deal.

The UN watchdog’s report said Iran restarted production of heavy water on June 17 after a maintenance shut-down of the plant which started on April 27.

The 2015 accord lifted international sanctions against Iran in return for Tehran limiting its nuclear energy program to ensure it cannot be put to developing an atomic bomb.

The Trump administration has been pushing the IAEA to check military sites in Iran, not just declared nuclear installations, to verify it is not breaching the deal. But for this to happen, UN inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.</s>(JTA) — The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it found no evidence that Iran is breaching the 2015 nuclear agreement.

A report released Thursday, the second anniversary of the deal, said that Iran’s supply of uranium fuel and heavy water were well within the allowed limits of the agreement reached with the United States and five other world powers, according to The New York Times.

President Donald Trump has indicated that he would like to scrap the agreement, which traded sanctions relief for brakes on Iran’s nuclear program. Last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, met with with IAEA officials and pressed them to be more aggressive in their inspections, according to reports.

On Thursday, Haley issued a statement suggesting that the administration would push for inspections of Iranian military sites, which Iran has declared off-limits and the IAEA has been hesitant to demand.

“If inspections of Iranian military sites are ‘merely a dream,’ as Iran says, then Iranian compliance with the JCPOA is also a dream,” she said. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the formal name for the Iran deal.</s>The UN’s nuclear watchdog has reported that Iran is staying within the main limits set down in a 2015 multilateral agreement that Donald Trump has insisted Tehran is violating.



The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is 88.4 kg (about 195 pounds), less than a third of the maximum allowed under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the official name of the 2015 agreement. Under the agreement, Iran accepted limits on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The current stockpile is just over 1% of the pre-agreement level.

The stockpile of heavy water is also below the agreed limits, the IAEA said, according to journalists shown the agency’s latest quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear activities. The report comes at a critical time, as Trump has threatened to withhold his certification of Iranian compliance when he is next required to report to Congress in mid-October. He has said he expected Iran to be found non-compliant by then and “if it was up to me” would have found them non-compliant months earlier.

Former officials say the Trump White House is putting pressure on intelligence officers and other officials to look for Iranian infractions that could justify the withdrawal of US adherence to the agreement, which is also signed by the UK, France, China, Germany and Russia.

The other signatories have said they will stick to the agreements.

“I cannot speak for the government of the United States of America. The British government, however, is fully committed to the JCPOA and to its successful implementation,” the UK ambassador to Tehran, Nicholas Hopton, said in an interview published on Thursday.

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, travelled to the IAEA headquarters last week to press the agency to be more aggressive in its inspections regime, and to focus on Iran’s military sites.

However, Haley is not reported to have presented any new evidence about suspicious activity at any Iranian site, nor named any military base she believes should be investigated.

Tehran has been adamant in its insistence it will not allow military inspections. The government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht this week dismissed the campaign for military inspections as “a dream”.

Haley responded in a statement by saying: if “inspections of Iranian military sites are ‘merely a dream’, then Iranian compliance .... is also a dream.”

The IAEA director, Yukiya Amano, told the Associated Press that the agency has access to all locations “without making distinctions between military and civilian locations”. There is a mechanism in the JCPOA for the IAEA to request access to sensitive sites and even to compel such access with the approval of five of the eight signatories to the agreement, who are represented on a joint commission.

IAEA officials have said they will inspect Iranian military sites if there is credible information that there is suspicious activity under way there, but they are reluctant to conduct a “fishing expedition” without clear intelligence.

“If they want to bring down the deal, they will,” an IAEA official told Reuters, referring to the Trump administration. “We just don’t want to give them an excuse to.”

The issue of inspections is likely to emerge as a key battleground in the struggle over the fate of the nuclear deal. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security issued a report on Thursday addressing Section T of the JCPOA, which bans any development activity on nuclear weapons technology and restricts dual-use items that could be used to research warhead design. The report argues that Section T requires routine verification of sites where suspect activities or equipment might be located. It calls for a verification regimen “that includes access to military sites and the sharing of relevant information”.

Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, argued that the IAEA was already policing Section T.

“It’s up to the IAEA to determine what they need to inspect, and where and when, to acquire the information they need to monitor and verify compliance with Section T, and I believe they have already developed an approach for doing so,” Kimball said. “At the same time, the United States is pressing the IAEA to demand inspections at sensitive military sites in the hope of provoking a refusal that would justify a finding of noncompliance.”</s>The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran has lived up to its commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement, Press TV reported.

The United Nations nuclear agency confirmed Iran's compliance with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in its latest quarterly report, the French news agency AFP said on Thursday.

According to the report, Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium did not exceed the agreed limit of 300 kilograms while its stock of heavy water remained below the ceiling of 130 tonnes after the country exported 19.1 tonnes.

The Islamic Republic "has not pursued the construction of the Arak ... reactor" and has not enriched uranium above low purity levels, it added.

The report comes at a time that Washington has stepped up its rhetoric and actions against the JCPOA.

Recent media reports indicate that administration of US President Donald Trump is actively seeking a pretext to potentially withdraw from the JCPOA.

Last week, the Trump administration sent US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to Vienna to lobby with the IAEA to request access to Iranian military sites as part of the deal, a move generally considered as an attempt at undermining the JCPOA.

Trump has also set up a team of his White House confidantes to present him with “options” other than certifying Iranian compliance with the deal to the Congress. Such certification is needed by US law every 90 days in order for the Congress to continue to withhold nuclear-related sanctions against Iran.

The White House has been further pressuring US intelligence officials to produce intelligence that could be used to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear agreement.

On the contrary, European officials have recently come out in support of the multilateral nuclear deal.

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was "no alternative" to the deal, noting, “It enables a constructive and demanding relationship with Iran.”

The European Union (EU)’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, also said the deal represented “the European way to foreign policy.”

The JCPOA was “a commitment undertaken by the entire international community on the one side and Iran on the other, supported by a resolution of the UN Security Council, and certified regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” she pointed out.

 The JCPOA was inked between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, and Britain plus Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

Under the deal, limits were put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of all nuclear-related bans imposed on the Islamic Republic, among other things.</s>VIENNA, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Iran has stayed within key limits on its nuclear activities imposed by its 2015 deal with six world powers, a report by the U.N. atomic watchdog showed on Thursday.

The report was the third since the January inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the 2015 agreement between six major powers and Iran, reached under his predecessor Barack Obama, "the worst deal ever negotiated".

Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium as of Aug. 21 was 88.4 kg (194.89 pounds), well below a 202.8-kg limit, and the level of enrichment did not exceed a 3.67 percent cap, according to the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report sent to IAEA member states and seen by Reuters.

Iran's stock of so-called heavy water, a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium, stood at 111 tonnes, below a 130 tonne limit agreed by the parties to the deal. (Reporting by Shadia Nasralla; editing by Mark Heinrich)</s>In their latest monthly statement on the P5+1 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is in total compliance with the deal, and that its low-enriched uranium stockpile is well within limits.

This is the statement they’ve issued every time since the deal was implemented, but comes at an increasingly important time, as President Trump has repeatedly claimed he considers Iran to be in violation is some non-specific way.

It also comes amid calls from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for the IAEA to inspect all of Iran’s conventional military facilities, to try to look for some violations. The IAEA, however, has insisted that there is no need for this.

Iran had already rejected the US call to check Iranian conventional military facilities on the pretext of a nuclear inspection. The IAEA has affirmed that it has the right to demand access to military sites, but only in the case that there is reasonable suspicion of activity there. Since there is no such suspicion, there will be no inspections.
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• US Sends Warplanes to Baltic Amid 'Fear' Over Latest Russia Wargame - August 30th, 2017</s>VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has stayed within the limits of a nuclear deal it reached with world powers last year on its stockpiles of uranium and heavy water, two chemicals that could be used for atomic bombs, the U.N. nuclear agency said on Friday.

In exchange for sanctions relief, Iran last July committed to keeping its reserve of low-enriched uranium below 300 kg (662 pounds) and its stock of heavy water, a non-radioactive product, at less than 130 metric tonnes.

"Throughout the reporting period, Iran had no more than 130 metric tonnes of heavy water ... Iran's total (low) enriched uranium stockpile did not exceed 300 kg," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a quarterly report on Iran.

The IAEA is in charge of verifying Iran's compliance with the deal it reached with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

"There shouldn't be any surprises for anyone. Iran continues to honor its commitments," a senior diplomat said. "At this point in time it's clearly below the 300 kg limit. It's not close to making us nervous."

In its last Iran report in February, the IAEA said Iran had briefly overstepped the limit for its heavy-water stock, but then came quickly back within the bounds of the deal. The breach did not worry diplomats.
An IAEA report says Iran remains within key limits set in the 2015 agreement with world powers on development of its nuclear program.