IAEA finds traces of plutonium in Iran

Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads — have been found in a nuclear waste facility in Iran, a revelation that came Tuesday as the Iranian president boasted his country's nuclear fuel program will soon be completed.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report detailing the discovery also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the U.N. watchdog's attempts to investigate other suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a two-hour news conference in Tehran, asserted the world has no choice but to "live with a nuclear Iran," although he conceded his country was "still in the first stages" of its uranium enrichment program.

So far, Tehran has been able to activate only two small experimental pilot enrichment plants that U.N. officials say have frequently broken down and have produced only small amounts of material suitable for nuclear fuel.

But Iran has progressed enough since resuming enrichment activities in February to provoke a U.N. Security Council demand that it freeze its program — a call Tehran has ignored. It says it intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, then expand the program to 54,000 centrifuges.

Iranian nuclear officials say 54,000 centrifuges would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as the one being built by Russia that is near completion at the southern city of Bushehr. Experts have estimated Iran would need only 1,500 centrifuges to produce a nuclear weapon.

Tehran insists it is only seeking to generate low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and not the highly enriched variety needed for weapons. It also denies it is building a heavy water research reactor at Arak in order to obtain plutonium for nuclear arms, asserting it only wants to produce radioactive isotopes for medical research and treatment.

Still, when finished — probably early in the next decade — Arak could produce enough plutonium for about two bombs a year.

The Arak plant, along with the discovery of a secret Iranian enrichment program in 2003, Tehran's refusal to cease uranium enrichment and findings by IAEA inspectors have increased suspicions about Iran's program.

The IAEA board in February referred Iran to the Security Council, suggesting it had breached the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and might be trying to make nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and its European allies are negotiating with Russia and China over a draft Security Council resolution that would penalize Iran for its refusal to respect an Aug. 31 deadline to halt enrichment.

Ahmadinejad remained defiant. "I'm very hopeful that we will be able to hold the big celebration of Iran's full nuclearization in the current year," he said. Iran's calendar year ends March 20.

But he acknowledged Iran still has a long way to go before it can produce enough enriched uranium for the reactor at Bushehr. "We need time to produce enough fuel for one complete nuclear power plant," he said.

Tuesday's IAEA report, prepared for next week's meeting of the agency's 35-nation board, did little to dispel concerns.

Beyond detailing the new plutonium and enriched uranium findings at a nuclear waste facility, it also faulted Tehran for lack of cooperation.

"The agency will remain unable to make further progress in its efforts to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran" without more cooperation from Tehran, the report said.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said Ahmadinejad's comments and the IAEA's latest discoveries "both demonstrate the urgency for the Security Council to act on Iran."

"Sanctions are obviously the only means to get Iran's attention," Bolton said.

As expected, the four-page IAEA report, made available to The Associated Press, confirmed that Iran continues uranium enrichment experiments in defiance of the Security Council.

A senior U.N. official who was familiar with the report cautioned against reading too much into the findings of traces of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, saying Iran had explained both and they could plausibly be classified as byproducts of peaceful nuclear activities.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report publicly, said that while the uranium traces were enriched to a higher level than needed to generate power, they were below weapons-grade.

The findings, however, were likely to be cited by the U.S. and other nations suspicious of Tehran's nuclear agenda as adding to circumstantial evidence against it.

Tuesday's summary also listed specific cases in which Tehran failed to cooperate with agency inspectors.

They said Iran refused to let the IAEA increase monitoring of enrichment facilities at Natanz, did not respond to a request for more information on its enrichment program, denied access to suspicious equipment or military personnel, and refused to provide information on apparent experiments linking nuclear and ballistic missile research.

The report will be discussed by the IAEA board next week at a meeting expected to be dominated by Iran's nuclear program, particularly its intention to ask the agency for technical help for its Arak reactor.

Diplomats from nations on the IAEA board say the U.S. is lobbying against Iran's request. Seven diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential information, told the AP they believed the board would deny Iran's request.

Iran pressing ahead with enrichment - IAEA

VIENNA, (AFP) - UN nuclear inspectors have found new traces of plutonium, a possible weapons material, in Iran, the UN atomic agency said in a confidential report that was unable to confirm that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, obtained by AFP, also detailed how Iran is pressing ahead with research levels of uranium enrichment -- a process the West fears could be diverted to make a nuclear bomb.

Despite the threat of UN sanctions over Tehran's refusal to hold back its nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday that Iran eventually planned to install tens of thousands of uranium-enriching centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel.

The IAEA report said the agency is investigating traces of plutonium found in containers at a waste storage site at Karaj in Iran.

Iran has been "requested to provide further clarification" of highly enriched uranium as well as plutonium particles found at Karaj and responded to this request on Tuesday, the report said.

A senior UN official told reporters that the Iranian response had come too late to be analyzed before an IAEA meeting next week in Vienna that will review the Iranian nuclear program.

The official said an overall problem remains in getting full and timely Iranian cooperation with the IAEA investigation into its atomic program that began in February 2003.

Iran needs "to do more" to clear up "the ambiguities particular to some of the alleged military aspects of the program," the official said.

According to the report, progress in this regard "is a prerequisite for the agency to be able to confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme."

Ahamdinejad announced Tuesday that the ultimate aim of Iran's atomic drive was to install some 60,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormak said the announcement was a "cold jolt" to doubters of Tehran's nuclear arms ambitions.

And at the United Nations, US Ambassador John Bolton said: "President Ahmadinejad's statements and the draft IAEA report both demonstrate the urgency for the Security Council to act on Iran. Sanctions are obviously the only means to get Iran's attention."

Ambassadors from Germany and the UN Security Council's permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- are currently deadlocked in talks to agree on a European draft resolution urging nuclear and ballistic missile-related sanctions against Iran.

The draft put forward by Britain, France and Germany includes travel bans and financial restrictions on Iranian scientists working on the nuclear and missile programs.

It is viewed as too tough and as counter-productive by Russia and China, which both maintain close energy and trade ties with Tehran while Washington is pushing for even tougher sanctions.

Iran has installed a new cascade, or production line, of centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in the center of the country, and now has two cascades of 164 centrifuges each running, as well as several smaller cascades.

Iran from August 13 to November 2 fed "a total of approximately 34 kilograms" of feedstock uranium gas into centrifuges in Natanz, producing a small amount of uranium enriched to low levels, the report said.

It did not detail how much uranium was produced but said enrichment levels seemed to be below five percent, nowhere near the 90 percent level needed to make atom bombs.

The research uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, where Iran wants eventually to build a large-scale facility with over 50,000 centrifuges, is monitored by the IAEA but the agency is also investigating possibly military-related nuclear work by Iran elsewhere.

One such site was a physics laboratory at Lavizan in Tehran that was razed in 2004 before IAEA inspectors could visit.

"Iran has not yet responded to the agency's long outstanding requests for clarification concerning and access to carry out further environmental sampling of equipment and materials related to the Physics Research Centre (PHRC) nor has Iran provided the agency with access to interview... (a) former head of the PHRC," the report said.

The agency is also waiting for information on high explosives testing and the design of a missile re-entry vehicle, the report said, adding that Iran had not provided "sufficient clarification" on experiments designed to separate out plutonium.