UN Agency Can’t Rule Out More Iranian Nuclear Sites

[Irish Zionist]

Plz let them wake up now.

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations atomic agency said it has lost confidence in Iran’s truthfulness and can’t be sure the country isn’t hiding more nuclear facilities.

Iran’s concealment of its Fordo plant, built into the side of a mountain and revealed in a Sept. 21 letter, “gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said today in a seven-page report.

Iran, with the world’s second-biggest oil and natural gas reserves, plans to start enriching uranium at Fordo in 2011, the Vienna-based IAEA said in the document.

“The IAEA’s latest report on Iran underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement. “Now is the time for Iran to signal that it wants to be a responsible member of the international community.”

World powers await Iran’s decision on a UN-brokered proposal for the country to ship most of its stockpile of low- enriched uranium abroad in return for reactor-grade fuel. France, Russia and the U.S. have agreed to the plan, which would supply a Tehran research reactor that makes medical isotopes.

Acceptance of the plan would improve the prospects for further talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. and several major allies allege is cover for development of a weapon. Under the proposal, Iran would get back uranium in a more highly enriched form suitable for use in a reactor and not in an atomic bomb. Iran says it wants nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes, including the generation of electricity.

‘Wrong Side’

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, who retires after 12 years at the end of this month, said on Sept. 30 that Iran was “on the wrong side of the law” when it failed to tell inspectors about the Fordo site. ElBaradei said Iran should have notified the agency on the day construction began.

Iran argued it was obliged to inform the IAEA of the facility’s existence some months before uranium enters the site, adding that the plant is 18 months away from operation.

Iran will pursue its peaceful nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, and will cooperate with the IAEA, the state-run Fars news agency cited the country’s ambassador to the agency, Aliasghar Soltanieh, as saying in response to the report. He called the document “repetitive,” Fars said.

Construction Start

Satellite photographs show Iran began construction at the Fordo site as many as seven years ago, the IAEA said. Iran says construction didn’t begin until the second half of 2007, when the government became concerned over possible military strikes against its atomic program. Investigators are continuing their probe into the site.

The Fordo facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Tehran near the city of Qom, “continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion,” President Barack Obama said Sept. 26. Iran’s government concealed atomic work from the IAEA for two decades until 2003.

Obama yesterday said time is short for Iran to accept the terms of the fuel-exchange deal, under which its low-enriched uranium could be shipped to Turkey.

“We are now running out of time,” Obama said after meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore.

‘Not Satisfied’

Medvedev said that Russia is “not satisfied” with the pace of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, and that “other options remain on the table.”

Iran is ready for “constructive and honest” cooperation with Western countries on its nuclear technology, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday, according to a posting on the presidential Web site.

“Cooperating with Iran is in the interest of the West,” Ahmadinejad said. “Their disapproval will make Iran more powerful and more advanced.”

Iran installed 5 percent more centrifuges at its Natanz fuel enrichment facility since the IAEA’s Aug. 28 report, when the agency said there were 8,308 machines ready to enrich uranium. The country raised its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to some 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds) from about 1,500 kilograms in August.

The report released today said the Fordo plant, which is almost completed, can house about 3,000 centrifuges, fewer than the 50,000 Tehran has said it will install at Natanz to fuel its nuclear power program. U.S. officials have said Fordo’s size indicates the plant wasn’t built for peaceful purposes.

Weapons-Grade Uranium

About 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium could yield the 15 to 22 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium needed by an expert bomb-maker to craft a weapon, according to the London- based Verification Research, Training and Information Center, a non-governmental observer to the IAEA that is funded by European governments.

“There remain a number of outstanding issues which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” said the IAEA, which has been investigating Iran’s nuclear work since 2003.

The UN agency is still awaiting Tehran’s response to intelligence documents, shared with inspectors by IAEA members, which show alleged links between Iran’s military and individuals and companies working on its nuclear program.

ElBaradei will present the reports findings to the UN nuclear agency’s 35-member board of governors when it convenes Nov. 26 in the Austrian capital.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at [email protected].
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