K1052
Elite Member
August 10, 2005
Iran Removes Seals at Nuclear Site
By THOMAS FULLER
VIENNA, Aug. 10 - Iran said today that seals had been removed from uranium-converting equipment at its plant in Isfahan, and that activities there would resume.
The deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Saeedi, told Reuters that Iran had received permission from the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency to remove the seals.
"Some minutes ago we received a letter from the I.A.E.A. authorizing Iran to remove the seals at Isfahan plant," Mr. Saeedi was quoted as saying, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Two hours ago the installation of surveillance cameras finished," he said. "The I.A.E.A. inspectors will oversee the removal of seals."
Removing the Isfahan seals, which were put in place last year by the United Nations agency under a voluntary agreement, means that Iran will be able to resume the second phase of the uranium conversion process, which Iran says it is pursuing for its civilian nuclear program.
Production remains suspended on the more sensitive part of Iran's nuclear fuel program, the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, a plant that Tehran kept secret for about two decades years until it was revealed in 2002.
Iran resumed the first phase of uranium conversion on Monday and diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency are divided about how to respond. A meeting of the agency's governing board previously scheduled for today was canceled because diplomats could not agree on how to rebuke Iran for resuming activities that could lead to development of an atomic weapon.
Developing countries, represented by Malaysia, made a joint statement at the talks Tuesday affirming the "basic and inalienable right of all member states to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes."
Britain, France and Germany are pushing for a forceful response, but do not plan on immediately referring the case to the United Nations Security Council.
"Negotiations continue among the 35 members states of the I.A.E.A. board of governors to reach consensus on language that will be presented to the full board," said Peter Rickwood, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran struck a combative stance at the meeting Tuesday, calling its uranium conversion program a "jewel."
"The operation in Isfahan will continue," Cyrous Nasseri, Iran's delegate to talks, told reporters after an extraordinary meeting of the agency's governing board.
"There is no reason to suspend this activity," he said.
Diplomats from the 35 countries represented on the governing board, which includes countries as diverse as China, India, Japan, Korea, Britain, Yemen, Slovakia and the United States, are seeking consensus on the issue rather than a majority vote, I.A.E.A. officials said.
An early draft of a resolution obtained by The Associated Press expressed "serious concern" about the resumption of conversion in Isfahan and urged Iran to cooperate by "re-establishing full suspension of all enrichment-related activities."
The specific process that Iran restarted on Monday is the first step in a lengthy process to convert uranium into nuclear fuel and is used both for civilian and military purposes.
Iran says it will use the materials for its program to generate electricity through nuclear power.
At the talks Tuesday the leader of the American delegation, Greg Schulte, said the United States shared its European allies' "deep concern about the course Iran is taking."
"Iran must not be allowed to violate its international commitments and must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons," Mr. Schulte said.
Asked for his reaction, Mr. Nasseri, the head of the Iranian delegation, issued a biting retort.
"Today is the commemoration of the bombing of Nagasaki," he told reporters on Tuesday. "The United States is the sole nuclear weapons state which had the guts to drop a bomb to kill and maim and turn into ashes millions in a split second.
"The United States is no position whatsoever to tell anyone and to preach to anyone as to what they should or should not do in their nuclear program."
In Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made similarly strong comments, calling treatment of uranium "our right," according to the ISNA news agency.
Speaking by telephone to the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, Mr. Ahmadinejad said he would continue negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, the three countries leading a European Union effort to circumscribe Iran's nuclear program.
But Mr. Ahmadinejad repeated rejections of a European package of economic, trade and security incentives for Iran to curtail their nuclear activities. "What the Europeans sent us is not a proposal but an insult to our people," Mr. Ahmadinejad said. "Their tone is as though Iranian people are a backward nation."
Iran says it wants to generate electricity through nuclear power, as is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The United States is concerned that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and argues that Iran essentially forfeited its right to a full nuclear program by deceiving inspectors for years about the extent of its activities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/inter...d16ec9dadba9b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iranians restart nuke site
Uranium work could lead to UN sanctions
By Tom Hundley, Tribune foreign correspondent. Tribune news services contributed to this report
Published August 9, 2005
BERLIN -- The International Atomic Energy Agency will convene an emergency session Tuesday after Iran's announcement that it has resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan nuclear plant.
Work began Monday at an area of the plant that the UN nuclear watchdog had not sealed from use, and Ali Aghamohammadi, a senior Iranian official, said Iranian scientists would break the IAEA's monitoring seals on the fuel conversion line. The agency, which has inspectors inside the facility, said late Monday in a news release that the seals had not yet been broken.
But soon after the agency completed the installation of monitoring cameras, Iranian officials began feeding uranium ore concentrate into the processing line, an operation that experts say could eventually lead to the production of the fuel needed to create atomic weapons.
Another Iranian nuclear official, Mohammad Saeedi, said IAEA seals would be removed from other portions of the line within days, allowing the plant to operate at full capacity. The facility, 255 miles south of Tehran, turns raw uranium into UF-6 gas. That gas can then be fed into centrifuges for enrichment into nuclear fuel.
Most experts believe that Iran remains at least a decade away from building a nuclear bomb, but this week's developments appeared to signal the end of a two-year effort by Britain, France and Germany to choreograph a diplomatic solution to Iran's desire to join the nuclear club.
By offering a package of economic incentives, the three European powers hoped to persuade Iran to abandon its attempts to make enriched uranium--seen by nuclear experts as the crucial step in the weaponization process--and to settle for a reduced nuclear energy program with nuclear fuel supplied by the Europeans or Russia. Iran suspended its nuclear activities in November in a nod to the negotiations, but Tehran rejected European incentives Sunday.
Tuesday's emergency session of the IAEA's governors in Vienna is likely to produce a stern warning to Tehran to suspend the fuel conversion activities immediately.
Sanctions possible
If the Iranians ignore the warning, the 35-member board is expected to reconvene in a week or two and formally refer Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions, according to IAEA sources.
Iran insists that its nuclear intentions are purely peaceful. It says it wants to develop an alternative source of energy despite its huge oil reserves, reducing its dependence on fossil fuels. The U.S. and the Europeans are skeptical.
In response to Tehran's latest moves, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer sounded discouraged.
"When I look at their nuclear program, then it makes absolutely no sense if the only purpose is to create electricity," he said.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he is "very concerned about the confrontational line that Iran appears to have introduced."
U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli accused Iran of "thumbing its nose at a productive approach." Neither Ereli nor White House spokesman Trent Duffy would directly answer questions about whether Washington intends to push for sanctions now.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called on Tehran "one more time, tonight, to listen to the voice of reason."
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said work resumed as Isfahan before the cameras and other surveillance equipment were tested, "which normally takes 24 hours," ElBaradei's spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said in Vienna.
Diplomats and arms-control experts were puzzled about why the Iranians may have refrained from breaking the monitoring seals.
`A trust deficit'
Nonetheless, "It doesn't really matter whether the seals are broken or not," said one Western diplomat in Vienna. "The fact is they've restarted the plant."
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran had a legal right to operate a nuclear facility, but that the IAEA imposed its suspension because the agency's investigation into Iran's past activities was not finished and because Iran's attempts to conceal those activities had created a "trust deficit."
"The point is they've started pouring uranium ore into the process line," he said.
Gary Samore, a former U.S. National Security Council adviser on arms control and now a senior fellow at London's International Institute of Strategic Studies, said the Iranians may still be involved in some diplomatic gamesmanship.
"One thing we have learned is that you really can't trust what the Iranians say," he said.
Samore said that even though the seals still may be intact, it seems clear that Tehran has decided to go ahead with its uranium enrichment program and take its chances with the UN Security Council.
"It doesn't look like they are bluffing," he said. "This time they've really backed themselves into a corner, and it looks pretty convincing that they will go ahead and resume uranium enrichment."
According to Samore, the Iranians appear to have concluded that negotiations with the Europeans were a mistake.
"Their original calculation was that they could cut a deal with the EU and isolate the U.S.," he said. "Instead, the EU and the U.S. formed a closer alliance and Iran's plan backfired. The Iranians feel like they ended up in a trap."
Given the soaring price of oil and the fact that the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq, Tehran apparently has calculated that it can weather UN sanctions and any U.S. military threat.
A well-protected plant
After Israel bombed Iraq's main nuclear reactor in 1981, Iran has been careful to scatter its atomic facilities across the country. The Isfahan plant is built partly underground, and its 150 acres are ringed with radar and anti-aircraft batteries.
"They [the Iranians] assume the Security Council is going to act cautiously. This will let them test the waters," Samore said. If the UN appears to be in the mood for harsh sanctions, Iran will have time to reinstate the suspension of its nuclear program, he said.
An Iranian opposition group based in Paris urged the IAEA to immediately refer Iran to the Security Council, accusing Tehran of exploiting talks with the Europeans in a "cat and mouse game" to stall for time while covertly developing a weapons program.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran said it obtained a classified document in which Iranian officials purportedly gloat over their ability to pursue that work while the Bush administration is preoccupied with the war in Iraq.
Farid Soleimani, an official with the group, told reporters in Vienna that the document was issued in June by Iran's Supreme National Security Council. He said it described the two years of negotiations with the EU as a "major achievement" for Iran's nuclear program because the talks took the pressure off the regime.
"We thwarted U.S. efforts to accuse Iran of non-compliance" with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which forbids Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, Soleimani quoted the report as saying.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati...204.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
If they continue the issue will have to be referred to the UN Security Council. It looks like the European's best efforts may have failed and they are going to have to make the call on what to do with Iran.
If Iran dosen't back down this could get ugly for everyone.
