Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday the decision to boost uranium enrichment to 60 per cent was a response to arch-foe Israel’s “nuclear terrorism” against its Natanz facility.
Tehran starting up advanced centrifuges and producing more highly refined uranium “is a response to your malice”, Rouhani said in a message aimed at the Jewish state.
“What you did was nuclear terrorism,” he said, referring to a blast early on Sunday that knocked out electricity at its main nuclear facility in central Iran. “What we do is legal.”
Tehran’s announcement of stepped-up enrichment has cast a shadow over talks in Vienna aimed at salvaging the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that then US president Donald Trump abandoned almost three years ago.
