NYT~~Traces of Enriched Uranium Are Reportedly Found in Iran
August 27, 2003
By FELICITY BARRINGER
nytimes.com
NITED NATIONS, Aug. 26 — International inspectors have found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian facility, according to a new confidential report distributed today. The traces could be an indication that Tehran has already produced weapons-grade nuclear materials.
Iran denied producing nuclear materials, said the report, by the International Atomic Energy Association, the conclusions of which were obtained by The New York Times. The report added, "Additional work is also required to enable the agency to arrive at conclusions about Iran's statements that there have been no uranium enrichment activities in Iran involving nuclear material."
The Iranians, the report said, explained that the trace particles found by inspectors at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant had been on the equipment when it was purchased from another country.
The report added that "Iran has agreed to provide the agency with all information about the centrifuge components and other contaminated equipment it obtained from abroad, including their origin and the locations where they have been stored and used in Iran."
John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, was in Moscow and Paris this week to discuss Iran, as well as the continuing standoff over North Korea's nuclear program. Philip T. Reeker, a spokesman for the State Department, said, "We have real concerns about this, and it's part of our broad dialogue with Russia on many things."
The next meeting of the agency's board of governors is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. At their most recent meetings the members of the board decided to press Iran both to sign an additional protocol and to provide the inspectors with additional information and access and allow them to test Tehran's claim that its program is a purely civilian effort to increase the country's energy capacity. Iraq has one nuclear reactor under construction at Bushehr being built and supplied by a Russian company.
The new report credits Iran with giving inspectors access to previously closed sites and providing new information about the origins of some of its nuclear efforts in the early 1990's.
"Iran has demonstrated an increased degree of cooperation" with inspectors, the report said. It added that Tehran has also indicated a willingness to begin negotiations on the terms under which it will sign a protocol to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, as the agency has asked.
David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, based in Washington, said today: "Several questions have been answered. Additional questions may be answered. But we still haven't answered the basic question: Has Iran enriched uranium?"
Mr. Albright also indicated that the information that is being developed in various capitals about the origins of the Iranian program points to Pakistan as the likely source of the centrifuge designs and components necessary for uranium enrichment. Pakistan's government has denied such a role.
Iranian officials have maintained for years that they are simply developing a civilian nuclear power program. The Agence France-Presse news service reported that, at a news conference in Tehran today, the government spokesman, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, said, "We are still negotiating and we have a positive approach" to the protocol, which permits unannounced inspections.
In Vienna, Ali-Akbar Salehi, Tehran's ambassador to the I.A.E.A., told The Associated Press that the equipment was "contaminated" with enriched uranium before it was purchased by Iran. Mr. Salehi told the news agency that the equipment in question was "brought many years ago from intermediaries," making it impossible to identify exactly where the contamination may have occurred.
In an interview with the German magazine Stern, to be published later this week, the director general of the agency, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, commenting on the traces of highly enriched uranium, said today, "This worries us greatly."
Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the agency in Vienna, said in an e-mail message today, "Our inspectors and experts have been in Iran no fewer than five times in the period since June and we have made considerable progress since then in clarifying the history, extent and purpose of Iran's nuclear program." But she said the remaining open questions required "urgent resolution."
A tough report from the agency in June concluded that "Iran has failed to meet its obligations" to report the existence of the natural uranium it obtained in 1991 and to report the existence of a heavy-water research reactor that could provide Tehran with a different technological capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material.
This report, according to Mr. Albright, appears less categorical, and so offers less ammunition to Washington or other capitals that might want to urge a tough stance by the board of governors. The board has options ranging from seeking more information to referring the Iranian question to the United Nations Security Council.
"They're still saying we're waiting for more cooperation, waiting for environmental samples," said Corey Hinderstein, a colleague of Mr. Albright's at the Institute for Science and International Security.
In a report in the current issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Ms. Hinderstein and Mr. Albright wrote, "Worries about Iranian nuclear activities were heightened in early July after Iran conducted a successful test of the Shahab-3 missile, which can carry a 2,200-pound payload as far as 1,500 kilometers. The timing of Iran's announcement about the Shahab-3 and the size of its payload suggest that the missile is intended to carry a nuclear warhead."
In an e-mail exchange, Ms. Fleming, the I.A.E.A. spokeswoman, said today, "The I.A.E.A. is hopeful that by the time of its next board of governors meeting in November, we will have moved decisively towards resolving the outstanding issues."
Mr. Albright and Ms. Hinderstein warn that every few months' delay in acting to shut down what may be an advanced effort to give Tehran a nuclear-weapons capacity gives the Iranians more time to expand their complex of centrifuges, which in turn could bring them closer to that end. |
