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Tehran / Vienna (dpa) - Tehran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna about the new Iranian Atomic Energy Act, which among other things provides for an increase in uranium enrichment to 20 percent.
"In a letter we informed the IAEA that we would have to change the uranium gas capsules and that the IAEA inspectors should unseal them," said Vice President and Head of the Iranian Nuclear Organization (AEOI), Ali Akbar Salehi, according to local media reports on Saturday.
The Vienna-based IAEA confirmed receipt of the letter, dated December 31.
When the enrichment should begin was left open in the letter.
However, the agency emphasized that inspectors were stationed in Iran all year round and had regular access to the affected nuclear facility.
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The nuclear law was passed by hardliners and government opponents in the Iranian parliament at the end of November.
According to this, the AEOI will produce and store 120 kilograms of 20 percent uranium per year, among other things.
"We have to implement the new atomic law, we can do that too, but the president (Hassan Ruhani) must also order this beforehand," said the atomic chief, without going directly into uranium enrichment.
Salehi criticized the law in December as technically unrealistic, as there is currently no budget available for its implementation.
President Ruhani believes the law is politically unwise.
In his view, the law would jeopardize diplomatic efforts to save the 2015 Vienna nuclear deal after future American President Joe Biden took office, who will be sworn in on January 20.
The incumbent US President Donald Trump had withdrawn from the nuclear deal.
Tehran is hoping for the lifting of the related US sanctions that plunged the country into the worst economic crisis in recent history.
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Politically delicate is Iran's withdrawal from the additional protocol of the IAEA, as provided for in the law, which would restrict or even forbid UN inspectors' access to Iranian nuclear facilities.
The law violates the Vienna nuclear deal in all respects, with which Iran should be kept from a nuclear weapons program.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210102-99-874878 / 2
Isna News Agency, Persian