Rouhani says Iran can enrich uranium to 90% purity if needed

Iran could enrich uranium up to 90 per cent purity if the country needed it, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, amid efforts by Tehran and six world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal that Washington abandoned three years ago.

"Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation can enrich uranium by 20 per cent and 60 per cent and if one day our reactor needs it, it can enrich uranium to 90 per cent purity," Rouhani said in a cabinet meeting, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Iran’s nuclear deal caps the fissile purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67 per cent, well under the 20 per cent achieved before the agreement and far below the 90 per cent suitable for a nuclear weapon.

Iran has been breaching the deal in several ways since the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018, including by producing 20 per cent and 60 per cent enriched uranium.