"There is a huge facility for parallel and full control over about 60 centrifuges in Natanz, which will begin to work within several weeks," Iran's vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said in the interview with the IRIB broadcaster.
The official emphasized that Iran would build a new facility to produce centrifuges, including the most advanced IR-8, which have been tested since the beginning of 2017.
The news comes after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the AEOI on June 4 to start working on uranium enrichment at the level of 190,000 SWU if the JCPOA agreement failed.
Washington has slammed the move, with US Secretary of State saying that it was not "appropriate for Iran to have the capacity to create fissile material, to enrich uranium or have a plutonium factory." Mike Pompeo stated that the US has 12 demands for any new deal with Iran, threatening to impose "the strongest sanctions in history" on Tehran if it refuses to change its policies.
However, French officials noted that this decision "remains fully within the bounds of the Vienna agreement as well as within the framework of the agreement."
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The JCPOA was signed in 2015 by Iran, the European Union and the P5+1 group of countries — China, Germany, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The deal stipulated the gradual lifting of the anti-Iranian sanctions in exchange for Tehran maintaining the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.
