UN Says Iran Changed Story on Nuke Centrifuges
Tue Jun 1, 2004 03:51 PM ET
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has acknowledged importing parts for centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium which it previously said were made in Iran, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report Tuesday.
Washington has accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear arms program. Tehran denies this, saying its nuclear program is only to generate power.
"Iran has acknowledged that, contrary to ... earlier statements, it had imported some magnets relevant to P2 centrifuges from Asian suppliers," said the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, which was obtained by Reuters.
This was "a further example of how Iran persists in distortion and half truths," said one Western diplomat on the IAEA board.
But IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who authored the report, said previously that it was too early to say if Iran's program was peaceful or not.
"The jury is out on whether the program has been dedicated exclusively for peaceful purposes or if it has some military dimension," ElBaradei told a meeting of NATO parliamentarians.
The United Nations has been investigating Iran since an exiled Iranian opposition group reported in August 2002 that Tehran was hiding a massive uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and other sites from U.N. inspectors.
The report also said high enriched uranium, or HEU, enriched to the point where it contains 36 percent uranium-235 -- the level at which it can be used in a bomb -- was found at Farayand, a different site never previously named by the IAEA.
The IAEA had previously said it had found HEU at the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and the Kalaye Electric Co.
Iran has said the traces of 36 percent HEU found at Farayand and Kalaye Electric Company came from Pakistan. But the IAEA report said the facts did not appear to support this.
"It is unlikely, based on the information currently available, that the agency will be able to conclude that the 36 percent ... contamination was due to components originating from the state in question," the report said.
Several diplomats said the state in question was Pakistan. They also said the 36 percent HEU could have come from Russia. But another Western diplomat who follows IAEA issues said it could not be ruled out that it was domestically produced.
Tehran has always denied producing HEU at home.
The report also said Iran had under-reported the amount of weapons-grade plutonium it had produced in laboratory scale experiments, though one diplomat close to the agency said the amounts in question were not significant.
Iran last year agreed to freeze its uranium enrichment activities, which can be used for making nuclear bomb material, and signed a protocol allowing intrusive inspections of its nuclear sites by the IAEA.
The report said the IAEA had been able to verify suspension at the key enrichment-related facilities. But a diplomat close to the IAEA said Tehran was still producing enrichment centrifuge parts at three private facilities -- despite Iran's promise to end all such manufacturing activity.
Another diplomat close to the IAEA said the unresolved questions about the extent of Iran's centrifuge enrichment program and the origins of traces of high and low enriched uranium were the areas of greatest concern for the IAEA in the coming months as the investigation continues.
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