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| FILE - In this Sept. 2007 file picture an anti-aircraft gun position is seen at Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment program, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment. |
VIENNA (AP) -- In a defiant move ahead of nuclear talks, Iran has announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Eager to avoid scuttling those negotiations, world powers are keeping their response low-key.
Iran
told the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intentions last
week, and the IAEA informed member nations in an internal note seen by
The Associated Press on Thursday.
The brief
note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m "centrifuge machines
...will be used" to populate a new "unit" - a technical term for an
assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.
It
gave no timeframe. A senior diplomat familiar with the issue said work
had not started, adding that it would take weeks, if not months, to have
the new machines running once technicians started putting them in. He
demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge confidential
information.
Mark Fitzpatrick, a
non-proliferation expert and former senior official at the U.S. State
Department, described the planned upgrade as a potential "game-changer."
"If
thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline
for being able to produce a weapon's worth of fissile material will
significantly shorten," said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute
for Strategic Studies.
"This won't change the
several months it would take to make actual weapons out of the fissile
material or the two years or more that it would take to be able to mount
a nuclear warhead on a missile, so there is no need to start beating
the war drums," he said. "But it will certainly escalate concerns."
The
planned upgrade could burden international efforts to coax Tehran into
scaling back its nuclear activities and cooperating with the agency's
attempts to investigate its suspicions of secret weapons work. Talks are
tentatively set for next month with a date and venue still open.
Iran
insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to
enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program. But suspicion
persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic hid
much of its nuclear program until it was revealed from the outside more
than a decade ago. A deadlock in the IAEA's probe of Iran's nuclear
program has furthered suspicions of a clandestine pursuit of atomic
weapons.
Defying U.N. Security Council demands
that it halt uranium enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it.
Experts
say Tehran already has enough enriched uranium to be able to turn it
into weapons-grade material for several nuclear weapons.
The
Iranian plan was condemned by Israel, which sees Iran's nuclear program
as an existential threat and has said it would use all means to stop it
from reaching weapons capability.
"While the
world is discussing where and when the next meeting with Iran will be,
Iran is rapidly advancing towards obtaining a nuclear bomb," said a
senior official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. "The
international community cannot allow Iran to arm itself with a nuclear
weapon."
The official demanded anonymity because he said he was not allowed to comment publicly on the issue.
Phone calls seeking comment from Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief IAEA delegate, went to his voicemail.
The
envisaged centrifuge upgrade potentially complicates planned talks next
month during which the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France
and Germany are expected to press Tehran to cut back on uranium
enrichment, and Iran is likely to seek relief from sanctions cutting
into its oil sales and financial transactions.
Iran
may be hoping that its tough line on enrichment will force further
concessions from the six, which over the past year have scaled down
their demands from a total enrichment freeze. More recently, after a
series of inconclusive meetings, they've asked merely for a halt to
Iran's higher-enrichment program.
Yousaf Butt,
professor and scientist-in-residence at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies, who supports Iran's right to enrich uranium, said
Tehran was "using the only leverage it has - its enrichment program -
as a means to coax some sanctions relief."
There
was no indication late Thursday that the six powers were ready to go
that way. But moderate reactions from some suggested they were eager to
keep negotiation channels open.
The British
Foreign Office confirmed that Iran had informed the International Atomic
Energy Agency of its plan, and described it as "a cause for concern,"
noting it breached both U.N. Security Council and IAEA board resolutions
urging Iran to curb enrichment.
But it
avoided linking the move to the next round of talks. Instead the
statement expressed hope that Iran would soon respond to the six powers
on a time and place for a meeting, adding: "We hope that Iran will agree
to talks quickly and come to the table ready to engage and negotiate
seriously."
In Moscow, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov noted Thursday that Moscow and its fellow U.N.
Security Council members "have called on Iran to freeze enrichment
operations during the negotiations." But he too avoided any direct
suggestion that the planned Iranian centrifuge update would upend such
talks.
The White House said the move by Iran
did not come as a surprise, describing it as a further escalation and
continuing violation of Iran's international obligations.
"It
would mark yet another provocative step by Iran, and will only invite
further isolation by the international community," said White House
spokesman Jay Carney. "We continue to believe that there is time and
space for diplomacy to work, but actions like this only undercut the
efforts of the international community to resolve its concerns."
The
European Union's top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, said
she is confident negotiations over Iran's nuclear program will resume
soon. Ashton has convened past meetings, and her spokesman had suggested
last week that Iran was delaying by setting new preconditions and not
agreeing to a venue.
A Western diplomat
accredited to the U.N. agency said IAEA delegation heads from the U.S.
and its allies exchanged views over Iran's plans Thursday and agreed to
await further developments. He also demanded anonymity because he was
not authorized to talk about the issue.
While
acknowledging that the Iranian plan was of concern, he noted that Tehran
had set no date for installing the new centrifuges. That, he said, gave
the international community breathing space.
Iran
says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and
medical purposes. But because of its nuclear secrecy, many countries
fear that Iran may break out from its present production that is below
the weapons-grade threshold and start enriching uranium to levels of
over 90 percent, used to arm nuclear weapons.
Tehran
now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main
plant at Natanz, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Tehran, to fuel
grade at below 4 percent. Its separate Fordo facility, southwest of
Tehran, has close to 3,000 centrifuges - most of them active and
producing material enriched to 20 percent, which can be turned into
weapons-grade uranium much more quickly.
Iran
has depended on domestically made and breakdown-prone IR-1 centrifuges
whose design is decades-old at both locations up to now, but started
testing more sophisticated prototypes in the summer of 2010.
David
Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and
International Technology serves as a resource for some U.S. government
branches, estimated in a 2011 report that 1,000 of the advanced machines
"would be equivalent to about 4,000-5,000 IR-1 centrifuges" in
production speed.
Separately from the talks
between Iran and the six powers, IAEA experts are scheduled to visit
Tehran on Feb. 13 in their more-than-yearlong effort to restart the
probe of the weapons allegations.
The British
statement urged Iran to "take serious practical steps to cooperate with
the IAEA on all matters of substance relating to the possible military
dimensions to its nuclear programme."
