UN nuclear agency says Iran poised to expand enrichment
Associated Press
SALZBURG, Austria — Iran is poised to double its output of higher-enriched uranium at its fortified underground facility, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, a development that puts Tehran within months of being able to make the core of a nuclear warhead.
The finding also calls into question a tentative new U. S. plan meant to induce Tehran to compromise on its nuclear program by offering a rollback of crippling new anti-Iran sanctions if Tehran cuts back on enriching uranium to 20 percent.
In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was ready within days to ramp up its production of 20 percent enriched uranium at its plant at Fordo using 700 more centrifuges.
That would double Iran’s present output and cut in half the time needed to acquire enough of the substance to make a nuclear weapon, reducing it to just over three months.
Iran says it has no interest in making nuclear arms, just nuclear power for its citizens, but the U.S. and other nations believe otherwise. Iran has refused to give up enrichment despite international sanctions and offers of reactor fuel from abroad and for years has stalemated an IAEA probe of suspicions that it worked secretly on developing such arms.
The report urged Iran to stop stalling the IAEA probe, declaring that unless it starts to cooperate the IAEA cannot “exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”
The report also clashed with comments by Israeli officials suggesting that Iran has slowed the timetable for reaching the ability to make nuclear weapons. The discrepancy is important because the earlier Israeli comments implied Israel would have more time before deciding whether to hit Iranian facilities in an effort to slow Tehran’s perceived efforts to make nuclear weapons.
The IAEA report, which was circulated among the IAEA’s 35 board member states, was obtained by The Associated Press. It said between the last IAEA board report in August and now, Iran had put nearly 700 centrifuges that were installed but not ready to operate at Fordo under a vacuum to make sure they are airtight.
That is the last step before uranium gas is fed into the centrifuges and enrichment begins. Aerial photograph shows damage from an explosion and fire on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, about 25 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., Friday. Four people received critical burns, and two others were missing.