UN-Truth

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has reported in a confidential one-page document that “Iran expects to produce its first batch of higher enriched uranium in a few days but its initial effort is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities”, according to a story from the Associated Press.  The IAEA document was based on onsite reports from its inspectors in Iran, who cited Iranian experts at the Natanz enrichment plant.

The AP story added that the IAEA document “was significant in being the first glimpse at Iran’s plan to enrich uranium to 20 percent that did not rely on statements from Iranian officials. Iran says it wants to enrich only up to that grade — substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads — as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment. But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.  Iran denies such aspirations. But its move is viewed with concern internationally because it would create material that could then be processed into weapons-grade uranium more quickly and with less effort than Iran’s present stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium”.

The restricted-distribution IAEA document noted that ” ‘there is currently only one cascade … that is capable of enriching’ up to 20 percent …A cascade is 164 centrifuges hooked up in series that spin and re-spin uranium gas to the required enrichment level”.

According to the AP report, “Iran has over 8,000 centrifuges at Natanz, although not all are working. It has amassed about 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium — more than enough for one warhead should it opt for that choice.  Iranian officials have said that they expect to produce 3 to 5 kilograms (up to 12 pounds) of 20-percent uranium a month. David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said that at that rate, it would take Tehran about three years to produce enough for further enrichment into the 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium needed for one warhead.  The IAEA document said the agency had asked for details on ‘the timetable for the production process (including the starting date and the expected duration of the campaign), along with other technical details’. Albright said that indicated that the Iranians were keeping silent on how long they would enrich to the higher grade and thus how much material they intended to produce”.

AP said that as a result of Iran’s decision to enrich to the 20 percent level, Washington has decided “to impose new sanctions on several affiliates of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps over their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it would freeze assets in U.S. jurisdictions of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he commands, which was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2007. The sanctions expand existing U.S. unilateral penalties against elements of the Guard Corps, which Western intelligence believes is spearheading Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to export its enriched uranium, enrich the material further and return it in the form of fuel rods for the reactor — and in broader terms for turning down other overtures meant to diminish concerns about its nuclear agenda. Iran, in turn, asserts it had no choice but to start enriching to higher levels because its suggested modifications to the plan were rejected.  That plan was welcomed internationally because it would have delayed Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon by shipping out about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, insisting it needs to enrich to create fuel for an envisioned nuclear reactor network”. This AP report can be read in full here.

AFP reported from Tehran reported that the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday “spurned a US offer to supply it with medical isotopes if it stops further enriching uranium as world powers warned the time for diplomacy was limited and the sanctions clock was ticking. The foreign ministry shunned the US offer as ‘not logical’, after State Department spokesman Philip Crowley floated the idea on Tuesday when Iran said it had begun enriching uranium to 20 percent for a Tehran research reactor. ‘Shutting down the reactor or stopping the production of medicine is not the solution’, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters. ‘This proposal is not logical … The solution is that the other side cooperates to increase (the number of) these reactors… and meet the needs of patients’, he said … adding that Washington and other world powers had ‘better adopt a realistic approach instead of economic and political pressures to deprive us of our basic rights’.” This AFP report can is published here.

Filed under: International Atomic Energy Agency - IAEA, Iran