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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....

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To: Sully- who wrote (689)	1/13/2004 7:18:25 PM
From: Sully-	of 35834

Diplomats: Iran Amassing Atomic Enrichment Machines Tue January 13, 2004 11:25 AM ET reuters By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has continued to acquire large amounts of machinery used to enrich uranium despite a promise to suspend all activities related to a technology critical to nuclear bomb-making, diplomats said. Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use in weapons or to make nuclear fuel for power plants. Experts say acquiring weapons-grade material is the biggest hurdle countries seeking to make an atomic bomb must overcome. Tehran, under fire over U.S. allegations it is secretly developing atomic weapons, agreed last November to suspend all "enrichment-related activities" and to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify the suspension. But Western diplomats told Reuters Iran has made it clear that it was only suspending activities that fell under its limited definition of the term "enrichment-related" and has therefore continued acquiring enrichment centrifuge machinery. They say Iran maintains it would only breach the accord if it actually enriched uranium, not just acquired materials. "They're getting a lot of stuff," said one Western diplomat who follows IAEA issues closely, referring to centrifuge technology. "They're not assembling it, but they're getting it." Another Western diplomat said the problem was that there were competing definitions of "enrichment-related activities." Yet another diplomat said it was "ridiculous" to exclude procurement activities from the suspension. He said the IAEA Board of Governors understood at its meeting on Iran in November that the definition of "enrichment-related" would be set out by the IAEA and not Tehran. He added that Iran's limited suspension had attracted increasing attention from Washington, London and other capitals. Although the IAEA would not comment, the diplomats said the agency would clearly have included procurement of enrichment centrifuges as an "enrichment-related" activity. "The ultimate goal has always been the cessation of enrichment activities and we're clearly not moving in that direction," one diplomat said. But Iran has made clear from the start that the suspension would be temporary and would end when Tehran saw fit. The Western diplomats said Tehran has been interpreting the term "enrichment-related" as narrowly as possible to enable it to forge ahead with its ambitious enrichment program, which Tehran says will provide low-enriched uranium for electricity-generating plants. Uranium enrichment has been a sensitive issue in Iran ever since IAEA inspectors found traces of bomb-grade highly-enriched uranium at two sites in the country. This sparked concerns that Iran either made or imported weapons-grade material for a bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear program is purely peaceful and says the traces were from contaminated machinery Iran purchased on the black market during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. reuters.com

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