Iran Hands Over Stockpile of Enriched Uranium to Russia

A Russian ship left Iran on Monday carrying almost all of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, fulfilling a major step in the nuclear deal struck last summer and, for the first time in nearly a decade, apparently leaving Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

The shipment was announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and confirmed by a spokesman for Russia’s civilian nuclear company, Rosatom. Mr. Kerry called it “one of the most significant steps Iran has taken toward fulfilling its commitment” and American officials say that it may now be only weeks before the deal reached in July will go into effect.

On “implementation day” roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets will be unfrozen, and the country will be free to sell oil on world markets and operate in the world financial system.

For President Obama, the peaceful removal of the fuel from Iran is one of the biggest achievements in his foreign policy record, the culmination of a seven-year long effort that at various times involved sanctions, cybersabotage of Iran’s main nuclear facility, and repeated Israeli threats to bomb the country’s facilities.

Less than a year ago, many inside the Obama administration — and almost all senior officials in Israel, which regards Iran as a dangerous foe — said they doubted Iran would agree to part with a stockpile of fuel that gave it the potential power to build a weapon, even though the Iranians have said that is not their intention.

Mr. Kerry, in a statement, said that the ship, which Russian officials said was the Mikhail Dudin, carried 25,000 pounds of nuclear material. That included, Mr. Kerry said, the fuel that was closest to bomb-grade quality: It had been enriched to 20 percent purity. Iranian officials said that fuel was for a specialty reactor to make medical isotopes, but it was considered a threat because it would require relatively little further enrichment to produce a weapon.

Ridding Iran of the material was a major goal of the multistep agreement to unravel what the United States and international regulators called a military endeavor in the guise of a civilian nuclear program.

Iran still is disassembling centrifuges, which enrich uranium, and disabling a plutonium reactor, among other steps that are required under the nuclear agreement struck in July.

For face-saving purposes, Iran is calling the uranium shipment part of a “fuel swap.” But the fuel it is receiving, partly form Kazakhstan, is natural uranium, which would require substantial processing to be used for either a nuclear reactor or a weapon.

Mr. Kerry’s statement said that with the removal of the fuel, Iran’s “breakout time” — the time needed to produce a weapon — has already moved from two-to-three months to six-to-nine months. Before the deal goes into effect, that time is supposed to extend to a full year.

Iran is permitted to hold 300 kilograms, or about 660 pounds, of low-enriched uranium under the deal. But that is not enough to produce a single weapon.

In a telephone interview, the Rosatom spokesman, Sergei Novikov, said the single shipment fulfilled the requirement between Iran, the United States and five other world powers including Russia to remove Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to this level.

“All that was mentioned in the plan of the six countries has been taken out of Iran,” he said.

The other fuel that can be used to make a bomb, plutonium, is made by irradiating uranium in a nuclear reactor. The process transforms some of the uranium into plutonium. The agreement requires Iran to shut down a reactor capable of creating plutonium. The Obama administration has said these two requirements close for Iran both paths to becoming a nuclear power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/world/middleeast/iran-hands-over-stockpile-of-enriched-uranium-to-russia.html?_r=0