Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing/Gates urges sanctions on Iran as Ahmadinejad orders higher enrichment of uranium

Iran’s President Moves Ahead on Uranium Processing
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/world/middleeast/08iran.html?ref=global-home


CAIRO — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ordered the nation’s atomic energy agency on Sunday to begin producing a special form of uranium that can be used to power a medical reactor in Tehran, but that could also move the country much closer to possessing fuel usable in nuclear weapons.

The announcement Sunday came after several days of conflicting signals from Mr. Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials about whether they were ready to reopen negotiations about giving up much of their country’s fuel in exchange for enriched uranium from another country. The exchange would allow Iran to meet some of its energy needs, but would ease fears in the West because the fuel sent to Tehran would be in a form that would be very difficult to use in a bomb.

The deal fell apart when it was rejected by the leadership in Tehran.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s order on Sunday may represent nuclear gamesmanship; it is unclear if the country has the capacity to enrich its fuel to roughly 20 percent, from about 5 percent, as Mr. Ahmadinejad was ordering. Doing so would require retooling the configuration of the nation’s centrifuges at a moment when Iran appears to have run into considerable technical difficulties at its nuclear plants.

It is unclear if those troubles have been caused either by its own technical failings, or sabotage by Western intelligence agencies, or both. American intelligence officials have told Congress and close allies, in closed briefings, that covert efforts to interfere with Iran’s production capability are extremely active.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is betting that the threat itself may force the United States, Europe and Russia to provide fuel on his terms; American officials have said the move would only speed the effort to impose sanctions. It may also affect Israel’s calculation about how far it is willing to allow Iran to get to a weapons capability before launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear or missile facilities.

Until now, Iran has never enriched significant quantities of fuel beyond the level needed in ordinary nuclear reactors, part of its argument that its program is entirely for peaceful purposes. But any effort to produce 20 percent enriched uranium would put the country in a position to produce highly-enriched uranium — at the 90 percent level used for weapons — in a comparatively short period of time, according to nuclear experts.

The deal announced in October would have required Iran to ship about 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Russia, and then to France, where it would have been produced for the Tehran reactor. But that would have left Iran with too little fuel to produce a weapon, at least for a year or so. The deal was initialed at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna more than three months ago, and was supposed to go into effect by Jan. 15. But it became a source of huge contention inside Iran, criticized by both hardliners in the government and leaders of the opposition.

“We have to agree, that deal is dead,” said Valerie Lincy, senior associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

Speaking at a laser technology conference in Tehran Sunday, President Ahmadinejad announced the decision that Iran would produce the fuel itself. He directed Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the atomic energy agency, who was seated in the audience, to move ahead.

“Mr. Salehi you start enriching up to 20 percent and we are still open to negotiations on the issue,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. He added: “The path to cooperation is open, if they come and agree to exchange without preconditions, we will exchange.”

That reference to “preconditions,” while vague, appeared to reinforce recent Iranian statements that the government was open to a new deal that did not require Iran to give up so much of its existing stockpile, or ship it out of the country. But such a deal has no appeal to President Obama, his aides have said. “For us, the only utility of the agreement was to buy considerable additional time before they could produce a weapon,” one of Mr. Obama’s strategists said in a recent interview. “If the deal doesn’t meet that test, we’re not going ahead.”

Reaction to the announcement was swift, even though it remains unclear that Iran has the technical capacity to proceed.

On Sunday, United States Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on the international community to bring greater economic and political pressure on Tehran. During a news conference in Rome with Ignazio La Russa, the Italian defense minister, Mr. Gates said, “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work.“ But we must all work together,” he said.

“No one has tried more sincerely to reach out and engage with the government of Iran than President Obama,” Mr. Gates said after meeting Italian officials in Rome. “The results have been very disappointing.”

The Iranian announcement Sunday appeared part of Tehran’s dual approach to confront western capitals seeking to isolate and penalize it for backing away from the exchange deal negotiated in Geneva in October. Iran has been saber rattling, testing missiles, holding war games, and on Saturday announced mass production of two missiles, one that can destroy “low-altitude aerial targets that fly at low speed and the other “equipped with two warheads and can destroy armored vehicles,” according to state owned Press TV.

The plans to increase enrichment to 20 percent fit with that leg of the strategy.

The second leg of Iran’s strategy calls for presenting itself as ready and able to negotiate.

The White House had given Iran until the end of the year to settle the dispute, or face new sanctions. Now, as Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris have talked up the prospect of increasing economic and political pressure on Iran, the government has repeated its willingness to cut a deal.

That could make it easier for China to continue to block efforts to have the United Nations’ Security Council impose tough new sanctions. Russia has previously been reluctant to impose new sanctions, but has been warming to the idea as Iran continued its defiance of the West.

“If they make gestures that may appear to some like they’re reconciliatory, it could have the effect of dividing up an already fragile coalition at the UN,” said Ms. Lincy, of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. “The Chinese are reticent right now and they have been since the beginning of the year when the deadline was supposed to have passed.”

Iranian officials have been forced to deal with the nuclear conflict against the backdrop of the worst internal political crisis to plague the government since the 1979 revolution. A grassroots protest movement emerged after President Ahmadinejad declared a landslide victory in elections in June amid charges of fraud.

The government responded with an aggressive crackdown that has jailed thousands, left many dead and injured, and raised charges that protestors were raped and tortured by officials. Recently, the government was accused of trying to scare protestors when it hung three men it said belonged to terrorist organizations, but tried to link them to the post election unrest.

Iran remains extremely tense, as it wrestles with a severe economic crisis, and the prospect of huge new protests on February 11, when the nation marks the anniversary of the revolution.


David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington, Thom Shanker from Rome and Mona El Naggar from Cairo.







Gates urges sanctions on Iran as Ahmadinejad orders higher enrichment of uranium
By Craig Whitlock and Thomas Erdbrink
Copyright by The Washington Post
Sunday, February 7, 2010; 12:12 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/07/AR2010020701173.html?hpid=topnews


ROME -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Sunday that "there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work" against Iran's nuclear program despite an announcement from Tehran that it would begin production of medium-enriched uranium.

Gates's comments came in response to a declaration earlier Sunday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he ordered his country's Atomic Energy Organization to produce fuel for a nuclear reactor in Tehran.

Iran says the reactor is for medical research, but Washington and its allies worry that the uranium enrichment is a precursor for making bombs.

Iran's leaders have given conflicting signals in recent days about whether it will accept a U.N.-brokered deal under which Tehran would hand over stockpile of low-enriched uranium for processing outside the country. In exchange, Iran would receive medium-enriched uranium in the form of special fuel assemblies that would enable it to power the medical research reactor in Tehran but not make bombs.

On Friday, Iran's foreign minister said that Tehran was "nearing a final agreement that can be accepted by all parties."

But Ahmadinejad's order to the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization to "please start the production of 20 percent enriched uranium" was a step in the opposite direction. U.S. and European officials said it appeared to confirm their suspicions that Iran is not serious about reaching a deal and is instead playing for time.

Because of technological limitations, there are serious doubts that Iran could actually reach 20 percent enrichment, and even if it could there would still be significant hurdles to overcome before it could operate the reactor.

Ahmadinejad immediately followed his order, broadcast on state television, with a comment that negotiations with the West over the proposed uranium swap are not over.

"If they came and said, 'We will exchange without conditions,' then we will exchange," Ahmadinejad said. "If they say they will cooperate regarding the reactor and the medicines, we will say, 'Very well, we cooperate.' "

During a visit to Rome for meetings with Italian leaders, Gates called Iran's actions "very disappointing" and appealed to other countries to present a united diplomatic front against Tehran.

"If the international community will stand together and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government, I believe there is still time for sanctions and pressure to work," he said at a press conference with Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa. "But we must all work together."

The United States has been pressing members of the U.N. Security Council to impose harsher sanctions against Iran, but has met resistance from Russia and China.

Russia has said it would not support sanctions that would affect Iran's population at large. U.S. officials have floated the idea of targeting Iran's central bank as part of a new round of sanctions.

Asked Sunday what kinds of sanctions the United States favored, Gates did not offer specifics but said measures targeting the Iranian government -- rather than the population at large -- "have the greater potential to achieve the objective."

"The international community does not want the people of Iran to suffer more hardship than absolutely necessary," he said.

Ahmadinejad was publicly criticized during the week for making favorable comments about the proposed uranium swap. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani and one of the main state newspapers warned the government not to be "tricked" by the West.

"They are after a type of political fraud in order to take the enriched uranium from the grasp of Iranians," Larijani said about the United States, in remarks repeated on state television.

Iranian officials were quick to separate Ahmadinejad's order to produce enriched uranium and the proposed swap.

"Ahmadinejad's order on enrichment of uranium to 20 percent necessary for the Tehran research reactor has no contradiction with fuel swapping. These two are not inconsistent," Ramin Mehmanparast, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told the semi-official Fars news Agency on Sunday.

But Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, denied that production would start immediately, saying that the president instructed his organization to start production of 20 percent enriched uranium only if talks on the swap fail.

"The Iranian president has underlined that the main focus has been the swap deal," Salehi told state news agency IRNA. "He asked our organization to initiate a plan to enrich uranium 20 percent. As soon as the Iranian president declares that talks on the swap deal are over, and upon direct order from the president, the operation will start at the Natanz site."

Erdbrink reported from Tehran. Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report