Iran Doubles Nuke Enrichment Capacity
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iran Doubles Nuke Enrichment Capacity*
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Friday, October 27, 2006; 11:53 AM
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran has doubled its capacity to enrich uranium by
successfully executing the process with a second network of centrifuges,
a semiofficial news agency reported Friday, sending a defiant new
message to the U.N. Security Council.
Council members are working on a draft resolution that would impose
limited sanctions on the Islamic republic because of its refusal to
cease enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a civilian nuclear
reactor or fissile material for a warhead.
The Iranian Students News Agency quoted an anonymous official as saying
Iran has successfully begun injecting gas into a second network of
centrifuges.
"We are injecting gas into the second cascade, which we installed two
weeks ago," the official said, according to ISNA.
The news agency said the second cascade had doubled Iran's capacity to
enrich uranium.
"We have already exploited the product of the second cascade," the
official was quoted as saying.
Iranian authorities are believed to leak ISNA information that they want
published but consider too sensitive for release to official media.
France's Foreign Ministry called Iran's expansion of its nuclear program
a "negative signal" that should be taken to account at U.N. talks over
possible sanctions.
A spokesman for the ministry, Jean-Baptiste Mattei, said the Iranian
announcement was not a great surprise because the International Atomic
Energy Agency had said in August that Iran was developing new nuclear
capacities.
"The door to negotiations is always open, but at the same time the
priority goes to the negotiations for a U.N. Security Council
resolution," Mattei said at a news conference.
French President Jacques Chirac, meanwhile, expressed support for
sanctions against Iran but insisted that they be temporary and reversible.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Iran's action was not a
cause for worry.
"I don't share concerns on this account," Ivanov told reporters, adding
that a second network of centrifuges launched by Iran was under IAEA
supervision. "It's premature to talk of uranium enrichment or of
military uranium."
Russia has strong commercial ties to Tehran, with a $1 billion contract
to build Iran's first nuclear power station.
In a separate report on Friday, ISNA quoted Ali Larijani, Iran's top
nuclear negotiator, as saying his country's enrichment program should
not hinder negotiations with the West.
"It is possible to review both nuclear and regional issues through
negotiation," Larijani was quoted as saying.
Larijani called for an open negotiation on the enrichment issue, and
blamed the West of being irrational in its opposition to an Iranian
nuclear program, which Tehran says is geared toward purely civilian use.
Diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to divulge the information to media, told The Associated
Press on Monday that even the decision to "dry test" the 164 centrifuges
in the second Iranian pilot enrichment facility showed Iran's defiance
of the Security Council. The council had set an Aug. 31 deadline for
Tehran to cease all experiments linked to enrichment.
Iran produced a small batch of low-enriched uranium _ suitable as
nuclear fuel but not weapons grade _ in February, using its initial
cascade of 164 centrifuges at its pilot plant at Natanz.
The Iran official quoted by ISNA said the nuclear watchdog was fully
aware that Tehran was injecting the gas in its new centrifuges, and that
nuclear inspectors had already arrived in Iran.
The Vienna, Austria-based IAEA would not comment on the report.
Iran says it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by the end of
this year. Some 54,000 centrifuges would be required to produce enough
nuclear fuel for a reactor.
Although Iran is nowhere near that goal, its successful operation of
more cascades of centrifuges indicates that the country is gradually
mastering the complexities of producing enriched uranium.
The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to build an atomic
bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear program. But Iran denies
this, saying its program is strictly for the generation of electricity.
The U.S. and its European allies are circulating a draft U.N. Security
Council resolution that would ban the sale of missile and nuclear
technology to Iran and deny the country certain assistance from the U.N.
nuclear watchdog.
China and Russia, which can veto Security Council resolutions, are
reportedly pushing for continued dialogue with Iran instead of punishment.
The enrichment process takes gas produced from raw uranium and aims to
increase its proportion of the uranium-235 isotope, needed for nuclear
fission.
The gas is pumped into a centrifuge, which spins, causing a small
portion of the heavier, more prevalent uranium-238 isotope to drop away.
The gas then proceeds to other centrifuges _ thousands of them _ where
the process is repeated, increasing the proportion of uranium-235.