* Iran moving to boost enrichment capacity
* Inspectors find higher-grade uranium traces
* Tehran cites “technical reasons”; U.S. says may be true
* IAEA sees “extensive activities” at Parchin
(Adds analyst quotes, detail)
By Fredrik Dahl
VIENNA, May 25 (Reuters) – United Nations nuclear inspectors
have found uranium particles refined to a higher-than-expected
level at an underground site where Iran has installed more than
50 percent more enrichment centrifuges, a U.N. watchdog report
said on Friday.
It said Tehran had told the U.N. agency that the presence of
traces of highly refined uranium – still well below potential
nuclear weapons-grade material – “may happen for technical
reasons beyond the operator’s control”.
The United States – which like its Western allies and Israel
accuse Iran of seeking to develop atomic bomb capability –
said the Iranian explanation could be correct and a leading U.S.
expert said he saw nothing “nefarious” in the discovery.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report came a day
after six world powers – the United States, Russia, Britain,
Germany, China and France – failed to convince Iran to halt its
most sensitive nuclear work during May 23-24 talks in Baghdad.
At the heart of the dispute is Iran’s insistence on a right
to enrich uranium and that economic sanctions should be lifted
before it shelves activities that could lead to its achieving
the ability to assemble nuclear weapons.
Western powers insist Tehran must first shut down
higher-grade enrichment before sanctions could be eased.
Iran started enriching to a fissile concentration of 20
percent in 2010 and has since sharply expanded the activity,
saying the material will serve as fuel for a medical reactor.
But a suspicious West is alarmed since such enhanced
enrichment accomplishes much of the technical leap towards 90
percent – or weapons-grade – uranium.
The IAEA report said environmental samples taken in February
at Iran’s Fordow facility – buried deep beneath rock and soil to
protect it from air strikes – showed the presence of particles
with enrichment levels of up to 27 percent.
That is above the 20 percent enrichment level Iran has
declared at the site, and takes it across the line from
low-enriched to high-enriched uranium.
“The Agency is assessing Iran’s explanation and has
requested further details,” the IAEA report said.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria
Nuland said: “There are a number of possible explanations for
this, including the one that the Iranians have provided. We are
going to depend on the IAEA to get to the bottom of it.”
A diplomat familiar with the issue said a “number” of such
particles had been discovered at Fordow and that further samples
were taken this month to see whether the find was confirmed.
PARCHIN “ACTIVITIES”
U.S. proliferation expert David Albright said it was
“embarrassing for Iran” but he saw no reason for concern.
“I think they just did it as they were starting up the
cascade (network of centrifuges). It is nothing special. It is
not nefarious,” he told Reuters.
The IAEA report suggested it is possible that particles of
uranium enriched to higher-than-declared levels may be the
result of a technical phenomenon associated with the start-up of
centrifuge cascades.
Enriched uranium can be used to fuel power plants, which is
Iran’s stated purpose, or provide material for bombs, if refined
to a much higher degree, which the West suspects may be Iran’s
ultimate goal. The Islamic Republic denies that.
Iran has increased its stockpile of 20 percent uranium to
around 145 kg in May from nearly 110 kg some three months ago,
the IAEA report said. Western experts say about 250 kg is needed
for a nuclear bomb, if processed further.
The report showed the Islamic state had installed 368
enrichment centrifuges at Fordow in addition to the 696 already
operating there, and had expanded lower-level enrichment at its
main enrichment site at Natanz in central Iran.
Although not yet being fed with uranium, the new machines
could be used to further boost Iran’s output of uranium enriched
to 20 percent, the part of the country’s nuclear programme that
most worries the West.
Albright said Iran was improving its skills at enriching and
that the monthly production rate of low-enriched uranium had
jumped “a great deal” at Natanz.
The U.N. agency also said satellite images showed “extensive
activities” at the Parchin military complex, southeast of
Tehran, which inspectors want to check over suspicions that
nuclear weapons-relevant research was done there.
The “activities” could hamper the IAEA’s inquiry, it said –
an allusion to what Western diplomats have said may be Iranian
efforts to remove incriminating evidence. Iran has denied
pursuing a clear weapons capability there or anywhere else.
The U.N. watchdog told Iran in a letter sent this month that
it needed “early access” to Parchin, the report said. Iran has
so far refused this, saying that first a broader deal with the
IAEA on how to clarify the agency’s concerns must be finalised.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said earlier this week after talks
in Tehran that the two sides were close to an agreement to
enable inspectors to resume their long-running investigation
into suspected nuclear explosive experiments in Iran, although
“some differences” remained before it could be sealed.
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing
by Michael Roddy)
