nuclear-news

Still time for a diplomacy solution to nuclear power problem in Ira

Window for nuclear diplomacy on Iran is now open but not for long, guardian UK Julian Borger, 23 Nov 12 IAEA inspectors say Iran may soon speed up its uranium enrichment, making the search for a deal even more urgent Having delivered its latest quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear programme to its board, the nuclear safeguards department of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) gave a technical briefing on Wednesday to an audience of ambassadors in Vienna about the same material but with some pictures to make the whole thing clearer. At such briefings, ambassadors can also ask questions to sound out the head of safeguards, Herman Nackaerts, on his impressions.

On this occasion, the main message western ambassadors came away with was that Iran appears to be just days away from starting feeding uranium hexafluoride gas into four new cascades of centrifuges at its underground enrichment site at Fordow. Those cascades, of 174 centrifuges each, are being vacuum tested which is usually the last step before piping in the uranium gas. The impression given at the technical briefing was that these new cascades would almost certainly be producing 20%-enriched uranium, which is the main proliferation concern and the leading source of international tension over the Iranian programme.

For the past six months Iran has been producing 20% uranium at the rate of 14 to 15 kg a month. It now has a stockpile of about 135 kg, while Israel has declared that 240 kg, enough to make a single warhead if further enriched, is its red line, implying it would take military action to stop Iran reaching that point. If the four new cascades work properly and starting spinning uranium, the production rate would go up to 25 kg a month, so the red line would be breached in about four months, rather than seven.

In the first half of the year, Iran had been diverting some of its 20% production to making reactor fuel and so taking it out of the stockpile. By August, it had taken about 96 kg for that purpose, thereby putting off the moment it had enough to theoretically make a bomb. Israeli officials claim it was for this reason that they did not take action this year………….

The bottom line is that the window for diplomacy that opened with the US election is now closing again at an accelerating rate. All sides had been waiting for the November 6 vote as that was to determine the course of US policy. Barack Obama’s administration was known to be resolved to give talks another go, but was not going to lay its cards on the table during the election campaign, for fear of appearing ‘soft’ on Iran…… http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2012/nov/23/iran-nuclear-iaea-uranium

November 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Iran, politics international