RSS
Iran has produced an initial supply of uranium enriched to the 20 percent level needed for use in a medical research reactor in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 9).
(Feb. 12) -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, views a laser technology exhibit in Tehran on Sunday. Ahmadinejad yesterday announced that Iran had enriched uranium to the highest level in the nation's history (Atta Kenare/Getty Images).
"I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," Ahmadinejad said, again declaring his country a "nuclear state," according to the Associated Press (Dareini/Karimi, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Feb. 11).
"We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or even 80 percent," the Washington Post quoted him as saying. Uranium enriched to the 80 percent level is considered to be almost bomb-grade, but Iran has denied allegations by the United States and other Western powers that its nuclear program is geared toward weapons development.
"When we say that we don't build nuclear bombs, it means that we won't do that because we don't believe in having them," Ahmadinejad stated. "The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to create an atomic bomb, we would announce it publicly and would create it" (Erdbrink/Kessler, Washington Post I, Feb. 12).
Although Iran has installed more than 8,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility, the nation has only a single 164-machine cascade that is now "capable of enriching" uranium to the 20 percent level, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a classified document. Roughly 22 pounds of low-enriched uranium had gone through the cascade, according to Iranian officials.
The low number of centrifuges configured for higher-level enrichment could limit Iran's production of the refined material, according to AP (George Jahn, Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, Feb. 10).
Tehran violated its IAEA inspections agreement by beginning the enrichment effort without monitoring by IAEA personnel, the New York Times reported.
When Iran informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog Monday that it would begin producing the material, the Vienna-based organization asked that Tehran to wait for the agency "to adjust its existing safeguards procedures."
On Tuesday, IAEA officials supervised technicians transferring 22 pounds of low-enriched uranium to the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Enrichment of the material began later that same day, the inspectors were told when they returned to the site Wednesday.
"There’s a feeling of pique and annoyance," a European diplomat close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said, adding that premature start to the enrichment was "unacceptable."
"They have to let the agency monitor the process," the official said (William Broad, New York Times, Feb. 12).
Meanwhile, the White House yesterday expressed skepticism that Iran had achieved its enrichment target, Reuters reported.
Tehran had "made a series of statements that are ... based on politics, not on physics," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. Quite frankly what Ahmadinejad says ... he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue," Gibbs added.
"We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching," he said (Ross Colvin, Reuters, Feb. 11).
"Americans don't believe, not any more than us, that Iran is currently capable of enriching uranium to 80 percent," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner added today, according to AP (Associated Press III/Washington Post, Feb. 12).
Data collected by IAEA inspectors over the last three years suggests that Iran's uranium enrichment efforts have sustained more technical problems than previously believed, says an analysis released yesterday by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
The number of operating centrifuges at Natanz gradually declined last year, from 5,000 in May to 3,900 in November. The problems might have resulted from clandestine efforts by outside actors, the ISIS analysis suggests, according to the Post.
Iran's increasing enrichment difficulties might make the nation more receptive to an international compromise over the program, the Federation of American Scientists posited in a report that has not yet been released.
Iran's push to enrich uranium to a higher level could be a political gambit, said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the FAS Strategic Security Program.
"They are really struggling to reproduce what is literally half-century-old European technology and doing a really bad job of it," he said (Warrick/Kessler, Washington Post II, Feb. 11).
A forthcoming U.S. National Intelligence Estimate asserts that Iran has conducted alleged nuclear "weaponization" studies since 2003, when U.S. intelligence agencies previously asserted such activities had ceased, CNN reported yesterday.
One U.S. official said Iran has focused on research of a possible nuclear weapons program rather than actual development of a bomb.
ISIS head David Albright, though, said that nuclear weapons expertise Iran has acquired from elsewhere could speed up an effort to prepare a nuclear arsenal. "They are trying to copy, to learn how to make weapons based on what they know from others. This is development," Albright said (Pam Benson, CNN, Feb. 11)
Elsewhere, Washington has offered to help Iran purchase medical isotopes from other countries, the Post reported. Tehran has justified its production of higher-enriched uranium to generate such isotopes.
"Rather than operate a reactor, this would be a more cost-effective and efficient approach," one U.S. official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post III, Feb. 10).
Iran rejected the proposal Wednesday (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post IV, Feb. 10).
One analyst criticized the Obama administration for initially supporting a U.N. proposal calling on other countries to refine much of Iran's uranium for use in the nation's own medical reactor, a proposal Tehran also rejected.
"They should have started with isotopes. Going to something sensible after you've promised something stupid and generous is a hard sell," said Henry Sokolski, head of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
"We have bent over backwards to say to the Islamic Republic of Iran that we are willing to have a constructive conversation," U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters, adding that "the door's still open." (Kessler, Washington Post III).
"What we are going to be working on over the next several weeks is developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they are from the international community as a whole," Obama said Tuesday, according the Washington Times (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, Feb. 10).
On Wednesday, Washington imposed economic penalties on four construction firms allegedly linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, an institution playing a key role in the nation's nuclear and missile work, the Post reported.
The companies are run or owned by Khatam al-Anbiya, a firm targeted by the United States in 2007, the U.S. Treasury Department said. Revolutionary Guard Gen. Rostam Qasemi, head of the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, was also included under the new penalties.
The United States has also begun pursuing additional penalties against Iran through the U.N. Security Council, but reaching consensus on new sanctions with the body's other permanent member nations could take weeks, officials said. China and Russia have resisted some calls for Iran sanctions in the past (Kessler, Washington Post IV).
Although Beijing has repeatedly expressed opposition to new penalties, it could fall behind a new sanctions resolution if the other four veto-wielding Security Council member states backed the measure, former U.S. Ambassador James Dobbins told Agence France-Presse (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 12).
Still, China and Russia could welcome a nuclear-armed Iran as a force that would limit U.S. influence in the Middle East, the New Republic reported Tuesday (Matthew Kroenig, New Republic, Feb. 9).
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is making a trip to the Middle East tomorrow aimed largely at increasing pressure on China to support a new round of Iran penalties, an analyst told the Christian Science Monitor.
Clinton hopes Arab nations will “act as a counterweight (to Iran) on China and help unlock its Security Council vote,” said James Phillips, a Heritage Foundation expert on the Middle East.
“The U.S. is hoping to use these discussions with the Arabs as a way to encourage China to look at its long-term economic interests,” Phillips said. “The Arabs could let the Chinese know that it will hurt them economically with the Arab countries in the long run if China clings to this pro-Iran position” (Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 10).
"The situation (with Iran) has looked bad from our point of view for a very long time," a Gulf Arab diplomat told the Wall Street Journal. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's going to get any better," the official said, adding that "those of us here at ground zero have to be very cautious."
"Iran has for a long time bet on the (Gulf's) lack of a coherent and well articulated, unified strategy and stance against it," wrote Abdallah al-Shayji, a Bahrain-based political analyst. "The (Gulf) states, bilaterally and collectively, continue to pursue cordial relations with Iran, hoping that this will prevent it from menacing them. But this strategy has been found wanting and lacks strategic depth" (Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 12).
"Iran is racing forward to produce nuclear weapons," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, according to the Globe and Mail. "This means not moderate sanctions, or watered-down sanctions. This means crippling sanctions and these sanctions must be applied right now" (Patrick Martin, Globe and Mail, Feb. 10).
In Tehran, a Foreign Ministry official pressed Moscow to deliver its S-300 air defense system to Iran, according to United Press International.
"Several technical issues" have held up delivery of the system. Some experts have expressed concern that the system could defend Iranian nuclear facilities from a potential air attack (United Press International, Feb. 10).