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Iran yesterday said it was wiling to simultaneously trade a significant portion of its low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched material in one exchange within its borders, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, March 16).
(Mar. 17) -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves to supporters near a portrait of his nation's supreme religious leader. Tehran yesterday said it would trade as much as 2,640 pounds of its uranium for a smaller amount of more refined nuclear material (Atta Kenare/Getty Images).
The Middle Eastern nation previously rejected an International Atomic Energy Agency plan calling for France and Russia to enrich much of its stockpiled uranium to the 20 percent level required to fuel a medical research reactor in Tehran. The proposal, put forward last October, was aimed at deferring Iran's ability to fuel a nuclear weapon long enough to more fully address Western concerns about the nation's potential nuclear bomb-making capability.
A single trade could now involve as much as 2,640 pounds of Iran's low-enriched uranium, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi told the conservative Iranian newspaper Jawan. Iran had 4,543 pounds of the material as of late January, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (see GSN, Feb. 18).
Tehran for months offered only to trade 880 pounds of its low-enriched uranium at a time for pre-enriched medical reactor fuel, Salehi said. "But this has no technical justification because those who want to produce the (20 percent enriched) fuel say that this amount has no economic justification," he said.
"What we are saying now is that we are ready to deliver the total amount of fuel in one go, on condition that the exchange take place inside Iran and simultaneously. We are ready to deliver 1,200 kilos and to receive 120 kilos (264 pounds) of 20 percent enriched uranium," Salehi said.
Iran last month began domestically enriching uranium to the 20 percent level; the move prompted concern because the process could help the nation produce weapon-grade uranium, which has an enrichment level around 90 percent. Tehran has long insisted its nuclear ambitions are strictly civilian in nature.
"When we say that the exchange has to happen inside Iran, it means the (International Atomic Energy) Agency will take control of 1,200 kilos of our LEU and then seal it," Salehi said, adding that IAEA officials could "monitor it 24 hours a day and ensure that nobody broke the seal."
"When they (the major powers) deliver the 20 percent fuel to us, they can then take the LEU out of the country," he said (Jay Deshmukh, Agence France-Presse/Google News, March 17).
The Obama administration indicated it would continue pursuing new economic penalties aimed at pressuring Iran to halt its disputed nuclear work, RIA Novosti reported today.
"We are going to put pressure on Iran. We're going to show our resolve. We're going to show our commitment to the parties in the Middle East peace process. That's what the American people expect us to do," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
"We have a 30-year history with Iran. On the one hand, we're disappointed that Iran has not engaged meaningfully. On the other hand, we continue to work with our partners in the P-5+1 process and others on an effective sanctions package that will have an impact on this situation," Crowley said, referring to the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany (RIA Novosti, March 17).
Differences have emerged between the United States and Israel over how long would be needed to determine the effectiveness of a potential fourth Security Council sanctions resolution on Iran, Reuters reported.
"We have a common assessment: the regime is vulnerable at the moment and sanctions have a chance of having an impact. But this can't be strung out for too long," one Israeli official said.
"There is far more that unites Washington and Jerusalem than divides Washington and Jerusalem on Iran," added David Makovsky, a Middle East analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Both countries believe U.N.-backed sanctions need to be tried, hoping that tougher measures can be averted."
"Yet there are differences" between the sides on specific measures, Makovsky said. "It seems the U.S. and Israel could have different clocks about how long sanctions are given a chance to work before more coercive measures are considered," he said.
The United States and Israel believe Iran could complete a nuclear warhead partway into the next decade, and Jerusalem has suggested an early Iranian nuclear bomb could be "months away." The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, said yesterday that Iranian nuclear-weapon operations had slowed "a bit."
Still, "Iran has to go through a lot of steps before it produces a 'no-kidding' nuclear weapon," one U.S. official noted (Adam Entous, Reuters, March 16).
The U.N. Security Council has not yet formally begun debating a new round of Iran penalties, Russia indicated yesterday.
"There is no discussion in the formal sense of the word under way, either in the Security Council or at any of its consultative sessions," Interfax quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. "Our Western partners are expressing ideas in private conversations that they believe could form the content of a possible new (Security Council) resolution," he said (Interfax I, March 16).
The mere act of pushing for new international sanctions might be exerting some economic pressure on Tehran, Time magazine reported today.
China, a major Iranian trade partner that has resisted Western calls for penalties against Tehran, slashed its imports of Iranian petroleum by roughly half between January 2009 and January 2010 while increasing oil imports from Angola, Brazil and Russia over the same period, said the International Energy Agency in Paris.
"China might be seeing where else they could get oil," says Christopher Segar, an IEA expert on Iranian petroleum.
Another expert, though, expressed doubt about the effectiveness of new punitive measures.
Additional economic penalties "will be a squeeze on Iran, but this is not likely to change Iran's policy towards its nuclear program," said Cliff Kupchan, an Iran analyst who heads the Eurasia Group. "We will very likely face a choice of accepting a nuclear Iran, or using military force," he said (Vivienne Walt, Time, March 17).
Former top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said yesterday that Washington and its allies should move away from their strategy of applying economic pressure to Iran while simultaneously offering incentives for nuclear cooperation, according to Bloomberg.
“The U.S. and other Western countries have pursued their previous method of carrot and stick and are thinking of sanctions,” said Larijani, now parliament speaker in Iran. “I believe they have realized that these politics will not yield clear results,” he said (Nasseri/Sheikholeslami, Bloomberg, March 16).
Tehran added it could respond to potential measures against its ability to import gasoline, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.
"The country has so far faced no problem to buy its needed gasoline," state media quoted Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi as saying. "Foreign companies will actually sanction themselves if they stop selling gasoline to Iran."
"Under an urgent plan, Iran will boost gasoline production by 14 million liters per day if the country finds it necessary," the official said (Xinhua News Agency, March 16).
Meanwhile, one U.S. analyst quoted news reports last month suggesting Iran might have received a 45-ton cache of North Korean-origin uranium yellowcake from Syria, the Korea Herald reported today.
After Israel bombed a suspected nuclear site in Syria, Pyongyang might have "moved the material to Iran via Turkey," wrote Leonard Spector, deputy head of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (see GSN, March 4).
"The 45 tons from North Korea (which has domestic sources of uranium) and Syria, sufficient for several nuclear weapons if enriched to weapons grade, would deal a setback to the U.S. initiative (of attempting to curtail Iran's access to external suppliers of the material)," Spector wrote (Kim So-hyun, Korea Herald, March 18).
The United States inked a deal in January to transfer a cache of bunker-buster weapons to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, the Scotland Herald said in an unconfirmed report. Experts suggested the bombs could be used to hit Iranian nuclear facilities (Rob Edwards, The Herald, March 14).
“If these reports are true, it's a very depressing picture, because we are seeing exactly the same buildup as we saw seven years ago with the war in Iraq. The same claims were made about Iran – that it has weapons of mass destruction and is about to attack the West,” Alan Mackinnon, a nuclear disarmament advocate, told Russia Today (Russia Today, March 16).
Elsewhere, an Israeli official yesterday played down a recent suggestion -- raised by Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev -- that Jerusalem was preparing for war with Iran, Interfax reported.
"Israel is interested in the international community's success in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear program. This is the goal of all our diplomatic efforts," Israeli Ambassador to Russia Anna Azari said (Interfax II, March 16).
In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry denied having knowledge of a Taiwanese shipment of pressure transducers delivered to Iran through China, the Washington Times reported. The equipment can aid the uranium enrichment process (Reuben Johnson, Washington Times, March 17).
In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan defended Iran's nuclear intentions, the BBC reported yesterday.
"I told [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] I don't want to see nuclear weapons in the region," Erdogan said.
"Countries with nuclear weapons are not in a position to turn to another country and say: 'You are not supposed to produce nuclear weapons,'" he added. "Iran has consistently spoken of the fact that it is seeking to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes and that they are using uranium enrichment programs for civilian purposes only. That is what Mr Ahmadinejad has told me many times before" (BBC News, March 16).