A senior European diplomat has divulged that Iran recently attempted to purchase 100,000 magnetic rings from a Chinese company. The rings are essential for enriching uranium.

The purchase of the rings, included in the list of equipment that are not allowed to be sold to Iran by a UN decision, would have increased Iran's ability to enrich uranium by a factor of five.

According to the Washington Post, the deal was not completed because international  powers discovered the Iranian order and stopped it in its tracks.