Iran ‘needs just 5 days’ to return to uranium enrichment if US backs out of nuclear deal

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Iranian women form a human chain, at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, to support Iran's nuclear program, just outside the city of Isfahan, south of Tehran. © Mohsen Shandiz / Getty Images

Tehran needs only five days to increase uranium enrichment to a level sufficient to make a nuclear weapon, Iran’s atomic chief has warned. The warning comes as US President Donald Trump seeks to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal.

"If there is a plan for a reaction and a challenge, we will definitely surprise them," the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tuesday, as quoted by AP. "If we make the determination, we are able to resume 20 percent enrichment in at most five days," he said on national television.

Salehi underlined that Iran is not keen on such a scenario, saying that "definitely, we are not interested in such a thing happening. We have not achieved the deal easily to let it go easily. We are committed to the deal and we are loyal to it."

In 2015, Iran struck a landmark deal with the US, France, the UK, Russia, China and Germany, under which it agreed to cap its uranium enrichment at 5 percent, as well as to reduce its stockpile of the material in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

"Our biggest priority is to maintain the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), but of course not at any price,"AFP cited Salehi as saying.

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