Iran
defying with nuclear program: UN watchdog
By
Michael Adler
AFP
NEW
YORK
Petroleumworld.com
02 28 06
Iran is planning to set up 3,000 centrifuges as it moves towards
industrial-scale uranium enrichment in defiance of Western fears
that this could be used to make nuclear weapons, the UN atomic
agency reported Monday.
The confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency
is to be crucial in the UN Security Council's deciding whether
to take punitive action against Iran over a nuclear program which
the United States claims hides covert development of atomic bombs.
The IAEA has called on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment
work.
But Iran is pushing ahead and on February 15 fed a 10-centrifuge
research cascade at a facility in Natanz with the uranium gas
that is processed into enriched uranium, which can also be used
as fuel for nuclear power reactors.
Iran tested a 20-machine cascade on February 22 that is now ready
for the feeding of the uranium gas.
And it is also setting up "process tanks and an autoclave",
which feeds gas into centrifuges, in order to go beyond small-scall
enrichment.
The "commencement of the installation of the first 3,000
P-1 machines (centrifuges) at FEP (an enrichment facility in Natanz)
is planned for the fourth quarter of 2006," the report said.
Iran has said it wants to install over 50,000 centrifuges in Natanz.
The IAEA said Iran has failed to answer crucial questions about
its nuclear program after three years of an agency investigation
but the report's assessment stopped short of saying the Islamic
republic was secretly making nuclear weapons.
A Western diplomat said this was "soft-pedaling" by
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei who is the author of the report.
But the diplomat said "the report makes painfully clear that
Iran has not met any of the steps called for" by the IAEA
board of governors, when it referred Iran to the Security Council
on February 4.
The report said Iran's cooperation had been lacking but left the
door open to Iran coming forth with more information.
The report, sent to the 35 member states of the IAEA board of
governors which are due to meet in Vienna on March 6, said:
"Although the agency has not seen any diversion of nuclear
material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices,
the agency is not at this point in time in a position to conclude
that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in
Iran."
It said further verification would take time, in a sign, a senior
official familiar with the IAEA investigation said, that the agency
is not closing the door on Iran.
ElBaradei had told Newsweek magazine on January 23: "If I
say that I am not able to confirm the peaceful nature of that
program after three years of intensive work, well, that's a conclusion
that's going to reverberate, I think, around the world."
The official said the report showed ElBaradei "still thinks
that there is some room for progress."
Elbaradei is still waiting for Iran to take "the political
decision to demonstrate some kind of transparency," he said.
The report said Iran has failed to resolve questions about Iran's
work with sophisticated P-2 centrifuges and about studies into
missile work and a secret "Green Salt" project for a
uranium conversion plant which are linked and could have a military
dimension.
But Iran did, on Sunday, allow IAEA director of safeguards Ollie
Heinonen to see in Tehran a military officer connected with these
projects, an interview the IAEA has been requesting for over a
year.
The official said such cooperation was what had led ElBaradei
to hold off on a more damning assessment of Iran's cooperation.
"If Iran continues to cooperate in this way, it is OK, if
it doesn't, then (the gesture of giving the interview) is just
another one of their tricks," the official said.
The report said there were also questions about Iranian work in
reprocessing plutonium, which like enriched uranium can be material
for atom bombs.
AFP
02 27 06
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