By Alexander Cornwell, Francois Murphy and John Irish
MANAMA/VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran is "dramatically" accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters on Friday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency later confirmed in a confidential report to member states that Iran was speeding up uranium enrichment, a process that refines the raw material so that it can be used as fuel in civil nuclear power generation or, potentially, nuclear weapons.
The IAEA findings will deepen alarm in Western countries that say there is no justification for enriching uranium to such a high level under any civilian programme and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs.
Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons.
Tehran already has enough material enriched to up to 60% purity to be able to make four nuclear weapons if it enriches it further, according to an IAEA yardstick.
"Today the agency is announcing that the production capacity is increasing dramatically of the 60% inventory," IAEA chief Grossi said on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.
He said Iran's production capacity was set to rise to "seven, eight times more, maybe, or even more" than the current level of 5-7 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity a month.
In the report to member states, which was seen by Reuters, the IAEA said Iran had increased the enrichment rate of the material being fed into two interconnected cascades of advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow plant.
The plant had already been enriching uranium to up to 60% purity with material enriched to up to 5% purity. The material being fed in now has been enriched to up to 20% purity, accelerating the process of reaching 60%.
That change means Iran will "significantly" increase the amount of uranium it enriches to 60% purity, reaching more than 34 kg a month at Fordow alone, the report said.
Iran is also enriching uranium to up to 60% at another site, Natanz.
The report said Iran must as a matter of urgency facilitate tougher safeguards measures, such as inspections, to ensure Fordow is not being "misused to produce uranium of an enrichment level higher than that declared by Iran, and that there is no diversion of declared nuclear material."
European and Iranian officials last week made little progress in meetings on whether they could enter serious talks on the nuclear programme before Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.
'DANGEROUS AND RECKLESS'
Tehran was angered by a resolution last month put forward by Britain, Germany and France, known as the E3, and the United States that faulted Iran's cooperation with the IAEA.
"This is a serious escalatory step by Iran, which we strongly condemn," a German foreign ministry source said of Iran accelerating uranium enrichment to 60% purity. "It is obvious that such measures significantly worsen the framework for diplomatic efforts."
Kelsey Davenport, director of non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association advocacy group in Washington, said Iran's acceleration at Fordow was "a dangerous and reckless escalation that risks derailing the prospects for negotiations with the United States."
"Increasing the capacity to move more quickly to multiple bombs' worth of weapons-grade uranium increases the risk of miscalculation and military action," she said.
After pulling the United States out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, Trump pursued a "maximum pressure" policy that sought to wreck Iran's economy. He is staffing his planned administration with hawks on Iran.
Grossi said last month Tehran had accepted a "request" to cap its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% to ease diplomatic tensions.
Diplomats said at the time that Tehran's step was conditional on the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors not passing a resolution against Iran over insufficient cooperation with the agency, which the Board then did.
"We do not have any diplomatic process ongoing which could lead to a de-escalation, or a more stable equation when it comes to Iran," Grossi said. "This is regrettable."
The E3 have said they want revive talks before the 2015 deal expires in October 2025. The deal lifted sanctions against Iran in return for restrictions on Iran's atomic activities. Since Trump left the deal, Iran has abandoned those restrictions.