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Iranian nuclear activities suggest that it has conducted work aimed at preparing a nuclear warhead that could be placed on a missile, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said today in a report to the agency's 35-nation governing board (see GSN, Feb. 17).
(Feb. 18) -
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, shown last week, said in a report issued today that Iran might have conducted work aimed at preparing a nuclear warhead that could be carried by a missile (Getty Images).
"The information available to the agency ... is extensive and has been collected from a variety of sources over time. It is also broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved," the new director general stated. "Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile. These alleged activities consist of a number of projects and sub-projects, covering nuclear and missile related aspects, run by military related organizations."
The U.S. intelligence community said in 2007 that it believed that Tehran had ended nuclear-weapon operations several years earlier. That conclusion, though, has been met with skepticism in Washington and other allied nations (see GSN, Jan. 19).
"Since August 2008, Iran has declined to discuss" the agency's inquiries regarding nuclear-weapon design activities allegedly carried out by the nation, the IAEA report says.
"With the passage of time and the possible deterioration in the availability of information, it is
important that Iran engage with the agency on these issues, and that the agency be permitted to visit
all relevant sites, have access to all relevant equipment and documentation, and be allowed to
interview relevant persons, without further delay," Amano wrote.
Iran's announcement last week that it would further refine low-enriched uranium from its stockpile gave U.N. inspectors insufficient notice to update procedures aimed at preventing the nation from diverting nuclear material for use in weapons, he stated.
Iran said it would enrich uranium from its stockpile to the 20 percent level required to fuel a medical research reactor in Tehran. The uranium enrichment process has civilian applications, but it could also be used to generate nuclear-weapon material.
"Additional measures need to be put in place to ensure the agency’s continuing ability to verify the nondiversion of the nuclear material at" the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant in Iran's Natanz complex, Amano said in the report. "Iran’s safeguards agreement requires that the agency be provided with design information in respect of a modification relevant for safeguards purposes sufficiently in advance for the safeguards procedures to be adjusted when necessary," he added.
"An increase in the maximum declared enrichment level from 5 percent U-235 to up to 20 percent U-235 is clearly relevant for safeguards purposes, and, accordingly, should have been notified to the agency with sufficient time for the agency to adjust the existing safeguards procedures," according to Amano.
The nation moved 1,950 kilograms of low-enriched uranium to the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz on Feb. 14, according to the report. "Iran provided the agency with mass spectrometry results which indicate that enrichment levels of up to 19.8 percent U-235 were obtained at PFEP between 9 and 11 February 2010," the document states.
At its Natanz facility, Iran estimated it had produced 257 kilograms of low-enriched uranium in its operational centrifuges between Nov. 23, 2009, and Jan. 29 of this year. If correct, the estimate would indicate Iran had amassed a stockpile of 2,065 kilograms of low-enriched uranium as of late January.
Iran informed the agency it had produced a heavy-water cache spotted by inspectors last October at the nation's Isfahan uranium conversion facility. However, Tehran refused to permit IAEA officials to analyze samples of the material, Amano noted in the report, obtained by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (see GSN, Nov. 17, 2009).
"In light of Iran’s refusal to permit the agency access to the [Arak] Heavy Water Production Plant, the agency has had to rely on satellite imagery to monitor the status of that plant. Based on recent images, the HWPP seems to be in operation again," the report states. In accordance with the [U.N.] Security Council’s request that the agency verify the suspension of heavy water related projects in Iran, and particularly in light of the presence at [Isfahan] of what Iran has described as Iranian origin heavy water, the agency needs direct access to the HWPP."
Amano reaffirmed his agency's insistence that Iran remains obligated to time its disclosure of planned nuclear facilities in accordance with a revised version of its safeguards agreement, even though Tehran has forsworn the updated pact's requirements since agreeing to them in 2003.
The agency also repeated its call for Iran to implement the Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement, which would allow for more intrusive inspections of Iranian nuclear sites, and to provide various documents that could shed light on suspicions that the nation has carried out nuclear-weapon activities in the past.
The nuclear standoff with Iran is set to be on the agenda for the next Board of Governors meeting, which begins March 1 (Diane Barnes, Global Security Newswire, Feb. 18).
Meanwhile, Russia's highest military official yesterday said a U.S. military strike targeting Iran's nuclear program would have a devastating effect on the entire region, RIA Novosti reported.
"The consequences, I believe, would be dreadful for Iran, as well as Russia, the entire Asia-Pacific community," said Russian General Staff head Gen. Nikolai Makarov.
The Obama administration has indicated it could still consider military options against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear activities that could support weapons development. Tehran has defended its nuclear program as a strictly peaceful endeavor (RIA Novosti I, Feb. 17).
Washington's existing military commitments are likely to forestall any U.S. strike on Iran, Russia Today quoted Makarov as saying.
“The U.S. is now conducting two military campaigns -- Afghanistan and Iraq. A third one would be a collapse for them; they will not stand it,” he said. "However, after these tasks are completed, the U.S. could deliver a strike against Iran.”
“Iran is our neighbor and we are closely monitoring the situation," Makarov added. "The Russian leadership is taking necessary measures to prevent [an attack].”
The current U.S. leadership is unlikely to attempt a strike on Iran, said Ruslan Pukhov, an analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
“Obviously, [U.S. President Barack Obama] is trying to act in a much smarter way than his predecessor,” Pukhov said. “He is trying to engage the others to block Iran and we see that the Europeans and Russians are less hesitant than several years ago” (Russia Today, Feb. 17).
Speaking in a television interview aired yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted Washington is only interested in addressing Iran's disputed nuclear activities through increased economic pressure, Agence France-Presse reported.
"Obviously, we don't want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, but we are not planning anything other than going for sanctions," Clinton said. "We want to try to get the strongest sanctions we can out of the United Nations Security Council ... mostly to influence their decision-making," she added.
"There are many countries in the region who are very worried about Iran's actions," she said, referring to Israeli threats of military action against Iran. "And there may well be those who think, well, we have to do something to protect ourselves."
Still, the United States continues to feel that "the better approach is to join at the international community, to work together toward sanctions, to exert maximum pressure on the Iranians, and to try every way we can to change their thinking," she said (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Feb. 17).
Tehran is still welcome to accept an IAEA plan for refining Iranian low-enriched uranium in other countries, despite the Middle Eastern state's announcement last week that it would carry out the enrichment internally, Russia said yesterday.
Iran has already rejected the U.N. plan, which called for France and Russia to enrich much of the Middle Eastern nation's stockpiled uranium to the 20 percent level required to fuel a medical research reactor in Tehran. The proposal, put forward last October, was aimed at deferring Iran's ability to fuel a bomb long enough to more fully address the nuclear standoff.
Tehran has only formally offered to give up small quantities of its low-enriched uranium at a time in simultaneous exchanges for pre-enriched medical reactor fuel.
"The start of this [enrichment] work in Iran does not mean that the three parties will reconsider their proposals. And we are ready to return to them if Iran finds this possible," RIA Novosti quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.
Ryabkov said he hoped Iran would "understand and accept the attractiveness" of the U.N. plan and that the nuclear dispute would move "towards a compromise" (RIA Novosti II, Feb. 17).
Iran yesterday reaffirmed its rejection of a separate proposal that it import medical isotopes directly rather than produce them at its medical reactor. The suggestion was noted by France, Russia and the United States in a Feb. 12 letter to IAEA chief Amano.
"It is not at all rational to say that Iran should not produce (isotopes and uranium) and stop its (enrichment) plant and that they will provide its needed medicine," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. "We will not examine offers which lead to the shutting down of Tehran reactor."
Iran would "examine the issue of buying 20 percent-enriched uranium or even an exchange (of uranium) under conditions desired by our country," he said. "But in the absence of mutually agreed proposals, we are losing time, the reactor fuel is running out and 850,000 patients await its medical products" (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Feb. 17).
Iran will never abandon its uranium enrichment program, the nation's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency was quoted as saying yesterday, according to Reuters.
"The West just has to cope with a strong Iran, a country with thousands of years of civilization, that is now the master of enrichment. I know it is hard for them to digest, but it is the reality," Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the New Statesman magazine.
"Iran will never give up enrichment -- at any price. Even the threat of military attack will not stop us," Soltanieh said. "By threatening Iran with the Security Council, with sanctions, with military action, you are just making life more difficult for yourself -- it doesn't work," he added (Reuters I/National Post, Feb. 17).
Iran's supreme religious leader yesterday accused Washington of spreading ungrounded fears about Tehran through the Middle East, Reuters reported.
"But no one believes these lies because they know that America is the real warmongering state. They have turned the Persian Gulf into an arms depot," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. "They invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and are now accusing the Islamic Republic. Everybody knows that the Islamic Republic is for peace and brotherhood among all Islamic states in the world" (Derakhshi/Dahl, Reuters II, Feb. 17).