Perilous Times
Iran: Military strike would not stop our nuclear
program
Comment by Iran IAEA envoy comes as Tehran denies it is to offer a
new uranium-swap deal in upcoming P5+1 nuclear talks in Istanbul.
By Natasha Mozgovaya and Reuters
Haaretz News Wires
Iran will be able to carry out uranium enrichment even in the case
of a military attack on its nuclear facilities, Iran's nuclear
envoy said in Moscow on Thursday.
"We are faced with a very serious threat and so we have had to
take measures to protect our facilities. We have provided for
another facility in Fardo near Qom," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, envoy
to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters.
"It is, so to speak, a reserve facility, so that if a site is
attacked, we can continue the enrichment process," he said.
The comment by the Iran nuclear official came as he U.K. newspaper
The Guardian quoted on Thursdays a diplomatic cable leaked by the
WikiLeaks site claiming that Iran had reached the "technical
ability" to produce highly enriched uranium, an essential step on
the way to making an atomic bomb.
Citing a diplomatic cable from April 2009, The Guardian quotes a
U.S. official at a meeting of international nuclear experts in
Vienna as indicating that "Iran had now demonstrated centrifuge
operations such that it had the technical ability to produce
highly enriched uranium (HEU) if it so chose."
Also on Thursday, Tehran denied reports alleging that it planned
to revive a nuclear fuel swap proposal, saying it was, however,
ready to discuss it in talks with world powers on Friday.
Expectations of any breakthrough in an eight-year-old stand-off
over Iran's nuclear ambitions were low ahead of a second round of
negotiations between Iran and six powers in the Turkish city of
Istanbul on Friday and Saturday.
The six dealing with Iran via European Union foreign policy chief
Catherine Ashton are the United States, Britain, France, Russia,
China and Germany, and there were resurfacing signs of differences
within the group that Iran has sought to exploit.
Speaking on the eve of the talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said they should look at prospects for relieving punitive
sanctions on Tehran. He criticized the United States and European
Union for imposing sanctions unilaterally that went beyond those
agreed by the UN Security Council last June.
Responding to Lavrov's comments, Deputy U.S. State Department
spokesman Mark Toner said that "UN Security Council Resolution
1929 stipulates what Iran needs to comply with in order to have
those sanctions lifted, and those are quite clear.
We were successful in getting Resolution 1929 passed. That led to
efforts by individual countries to toughen those sanctions. We
think they've had an effect," Toner added, saying the U.S. was
taking nuclear talks "step-by-step, incremental
approach."
There is international concern that Iran's declared civilian
nuclear energy program is a cover for pursuit of atom bombs.
Escalating economic sanctions have been slapped on Tehran over its
refusal to curb nuclear work and make it more transparent.
Those are the powers' goals in negotiations with Iran, which has
said its uranium enrichment drive is a sovereign right and not
negotiable because it is solely for electricity generation.
The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV news channel reported on Thursday
that Iran would propose a revised version of a swap that was
agreed in principle at a 2009 round of talks and then unraveled.
But Iranian officials denied any such intentions.
"I haven't heard about it," Ali Baqeri, a deputy to Iranian
nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, told Reuters as the Iranian
delegation arrived in Istanbul on Thursday.
Another Iranian official said: "There is no new proposal."
Tougher sanctions over the last year and possible sabotage that
may have slowed Iran's nuclear advance could buy extra time for
diplomacy and reduce the risk of the long-running dispute
escalating into a military conflict, at least for now.
Time passing quickly
Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar
Soltanieh, told a news conference in Moscow that Tehran was ready
to discuss a swap on the basis of the one hatched in October 2009
and then revived last May by Brazil and Turkey.
The proposal was for Iran to part with 1,200 kg of its
low-enriched uranium (LEU) -- roughly the amount needed for a bomb
if refined to a high level of fissile purity. It was then to be
enriched to 20 percent and made into fuel assemblies for a Tehran
medical research reactor now running out of such fuel.
Iran's effort to revive the idea last May was dismissed by the
powers this time since its LEU stockpile had already doubled in
the intervening period and Tehran had swung into enriching to
higher level that could bring it closer to developing a bomb.
Soltanieh warned that "time is passing quickly" and there would be
no reason for a swap once Iran starts feeding its own 20
percent-enriched uranium into the Tehran reactor.
The UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on
Iran in June last year. The United States and European Union
followed up with additional unilateral sanctions.
Signaling determination to keep up pressure on Iran, U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told television network ABC the
Obama administration may propose new unilateral sanctions on Iran,
one of the world's largest oil exporters.
But Russia said unilateral sanctions were "spoilers" and the talks
in Istanbul should look at ways of rolling back sanctions.
"We explained to our partners in the United States and the
European Union what we think about unilateral sanctions and we
hope they have heard us," Lavrov said at a joint news conference
with Turkey's foreign minister.
"It is counterproductive to continuing our common efforts to
resolve the Iranian nuclear issue."
He said that if an approach for future talks on unresolved issues
were agreed in Istanbul, that would be "a good result."
"But this meeting doesn't have just one topic. Canceling the
sanctions against Iran should also be discussed."
Russia and China, which have had major trade ties with Iran, have
long been concerned not to drive it into a corner over the nuclear
program, which Tehran equates with national pride.