'Iran aims to stockpile uranium'

BY YAAKOV KATZ 09/02/2010 02:23

Israel fears 20% enrichment is leap away from military-grade material.

Iran will make the political decision to enrich uranium to military-grade levels once it has accumulated enough fissionable material for a small arsenal of three to four nuclear devices, according to latest intelligence assessments.

Iran, according to the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, has already accumulated 1.8 tons of uranium enriched to four percent.

Iran has announced plans to begin enriching uranium to 20% levels for use as fuel in a research reactor it has in Teheran, which is expected to exhaust its present stock within the year.

Although material for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead must be enriched to a level of 90% or more, just getting its stockpile to the 20% mark would be a major step for the country’s nuclear program.

According to intelligence assessments, enriching uranium to 20% – expected to take about a year – would put the Iranians just a leap away from enriching to military-grade levels.

While Iran already has mastered all of the technology needed to create a nuclear device, it is still working to accumulate several more tons of enriched uranium before it decides to begin what is called the “breakout stage.”

For this to happen, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would need to give the order, from when it will take approximately a year for the Iranians to produce their first testable nuclear device, like the one tested by North Korea in 2006.

On Monday, Iranian envoy to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh said that UN inspectors would be able to stay on site to fully monitor the enrichment process. He also blamed world powers for Iran’s decision, asserting that it was their fault that a plan that foresaw Russian and French involvement in supplying the research reactor had failed.

“Until now, we have not received any response to our positive logical and technical proposal,” he said. “We cannot leave hospitals and patients desperately waiting for radioisotopes” being produced at the Teheran reactor and used in cancer treatment, he added.

At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama’s attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Teheran for not reciprocating.

“No US president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran,” he said. “All these initiatives have been rejected.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak called on the world to impose tough sanctions on Iran in response to its decision to upgrade its uranium enrichment to 20%.

“The right response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions on Iran,” Barak told a meeting of Labor’s Knesset faction.

He responded to Khamenei’s recent statements that Israel would soon disappear, saying while Israel would not disappear, Khamenei’s regime might.

“Israel is here forever and will continue to bloom and strengthen,” Barak said. “A regime that tramples its citizens will ultimately be trampled by them.”

Soltanieh declined to say how much of Iran’s 1.8-ton stockpile would be enriched to 20 percent. Nor did he say when the process would begin.

Meanwhile Monday, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran had launched two production lines to build unmanned aircraft with surveillance and attack capabilities.

The two types of drones are named Ra’d (thunder) and Nazir (herald), with the former possessing offensive capabilities.

A senior air force commander, Gen. Heshmatollah Kasiri, told the official IRNA news agency Monday that Iran would “soon” deploy an air defense system with capabilities matching, or superior to, those of the Russian S-300 system.

He did not elaborate, but the S-300 missiles are capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of over 145 kilometers and at altitudes of about 90,000 feet.

Gen. Kasiri said Iran produces its entire air
defense needs domestically, but still criticized Russia for not delivering the S-300 missiles, for “unacceptable reasons.”

Russia signed a 2007 contract to sell the S-300
missile system to Iran, but they have not been delivered yet due to stiff Israeli and US objection. The potential delivery will come up in talks Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will hold next week in Moscow.

There are two schools of thought within Israel regarding the S-300. One school believes that Israel needs to do everything possible to prevent Iran from obtaining the system, which is seen as capable of forcing Israel to call off a strike against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. Other officials believe that the S-300 is not a “deal-breaker” and that Israel would be able to develop an electronic warfare system that could neutralize it.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told Al Jazeera in an interview Monday that Israel is “a crazy nation led by crazy people.”

Mottaki said Iran did not take seriously Israel’s threats to attack its nuclear installations, but added that Teheran must be prepared for an Israeli onslaught.He said “the Zionist regime is at its weakest point and holds the weakest positions for the past three years. This is the first time we see this regime facing two separate and important defeats and the seventh time Israeli forces tried to enter Lebanon and force war upon it.”

Mottaki said the recently published Goldstone Report, which alleges Israel may have committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter, means Israel “cannot start with more aggressive behavior.”

Gil Hoffman, Jerusalem Post staff and AP contributed to this report.

Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Head: 'We Have the Right to Enrich Uranium to 100%'

MEMRI - MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH

In a January 9, 2010 interview on Iranian TV, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi said that Iran had the right to enrich uranium to 100%, but that it nevertheless preferred to purchase the nuclear fuel it needed from other countries.

It should be noted that uranium enriched to 90% or higher is used only for military purposes, in the construction of nuclear weapons. According to International Atomic Energy Agency regulations, uranium for peaceful purposes may be enriched to no more than 5%, with prior authorization from the agency. Additionally, with the IAEA's authorization, uranium enriched to 19.75% can be used to operate research reactors for medical purposes, like the one in Tehran (this type of uranium can be purchased from countries that operate enrichment facilities).

Following are excerpts from Salehi's interview:[1]

In response to a question about exchanging Iran's 1,200 kilograms of uranium, already enriched to 3.5%, for 120 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20%, Salehi said: "Although we informed the IAEA in advance that our centrifuges are set up in such a way that we do not enrich uranium to over 5%, we do have the right to enrich uranium to a level of up to 100%, and we will always have this right. Enrichment to a level of 20% is also within our rights, but we prefer to obtain the [nuclear] fuel from abroad."

Salehi added, "The [Western] countries that negotiated with us on the [nuclear] fuel issue asked us not to publicize [their] informal proposal for the exchange of [nuclear] fuel [meant] for the research reactor in Tehran. Publishing it could have brought us much political advantage." He said further that Iran demanded "tangible guarantees that it would [actually] receive uranium enriched to 20% in a deal of simultaneous [exchange] carried out on Iranian soil."

During the interview, Salehi reiterated several times that even though Iran had the ability to supply its own needs, it preferred to purchase the enriched uranium, so that Iran and the rest of the world could assess the sincerity of the West's proposals.

Endnote:

[1] ISNA, IRIB (Iran), January 10, 2010

'Iran to get uranium from Kazakhstan'

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

ran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. Diplomats said the assessment was heightening international concern about Teheran's nuclear activities.

Such a purified uranium ore deal would be significant because Teheran appears to be running out of the material, which it needs to feed its uranium enrichment program.

The report was drawn up by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy agency and provided to the AP on condition of that the country not be identified because of the confidential nature of the information.

Such imports are banned by the UN Security Council.

In New York, Burkina Faso's UN Ambassador Michel Kafando, a co-chair of the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, referred questions Tuesday about a potential deal between Iran andKazakhstan to his sanctions adviser, Zongo Saidou.

Saidou told the AP that, as far as he knew, none of the UN's member nations have alerted the committee about any such allegations. "We don't have any official information yet regarding this kind of exchange between the two countries," Saidou said. "I don't have any information; I don't have any proof."

A senior UN official said the agency was aware of the intelligence report's assessment but could not yet draw conclusions. He demanded anonymity for discussing confidential information. A Western diplomat from a member of the IAEA's 35-nation board said the report was causing "concern" among countries that have seen it and generating "intelligence chatter." The diplomat also requested anonymity for discussing intelligence information.

A two-page summary of the report obtained by the AP said deal could be completed within weeks. It said Teheran was willing to pay $450 million, or close to 315 million euros, for the shipment.

The price is high because of the secret nature of the deal and due to Iran's commitment to keep secret the elements supplying the material," said the summary. An official of the country that drew up the report said "elements" referred to state employees acting on their own without approval of the Kazakh government.

After-hours calls put in to offices of Kazatomprom, the Kazak state uranium company, in Kazakhstan and Moscow, were not answered Tuesday. Iranian nuclear officials also did not pick up their telephones.

Separately a senior US official who demanded anonymity for talking about confidential information said Washington was aware of the intelligence report, but declined to discuss specifics.

"We are not going to discuss our private consultations with other governments on such matters but, suffice to say, we have been engaged with Kazakhstan and many of our other international nonproliferation partners on this subject in particular over the past several years," he told the AP. "We will continue to have those discussions."

Purified ore, or uranium oxide, is processed into a uranium gas, which is then spun and re-spun to varying degrees of enrichment. Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel, and upper-end high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze its enrichment program and related activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Teheran denies such aspirations, saying it wants to enrich only to fuel an envisaged network of power reactors.

Any attempt to import such a large amount of uranium ore would be in violation of those sanctions, which ban exports to the Islamic Republic of all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology that could contribute to its enrichment activities.

In addition, transfers of uranium ore in quantities greater than 500 kilograms annually are subject to close scrutiny by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of countries exporting atomic technology and materials.

Teheran still has hundreds of tons of uranium hexafluoride - the gas that is spun by centrifuges into enriched uranium. But its stockpile of uranium oxide, from which the gas is derived, is thought to be rapidly diminishing.

The IAEA believes that Iran's rapidly expanding enrichment program has been built on 600 tons of so-called "yellowcake" or uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s as part of plans by the former regime to build a network of nuclear reactors.

But the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said earlier this year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up close to three-quarters of its South African supply.

In a November report, the IAEA noted that Iran had stopped producing uranium gas from yellowcake in early August and said Iranian officials had notified the agency that the production facility was down for maintenance.

But David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said Tuesday that the facility at the city of Isfahan had produced very little for about a year.

"They said it was closed for maintenance but the reality is they probably ran out of uranium," he said.

Kazakhstan is among the world's three top producers of uranium, accounting for more than 8,500 tons last year. Iran, in contrast is producing an estimated 20 tons a year - far too little to power even one large reactor let alone the network is says it wants to put in place.