02 February 2007
Iran has denied that it was blocking UN inspectors from a key nuclear site or installing new centrifuges in defiance of UN demands to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work. The allegations came amid growing international pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear program. "We have not begun installing new centrifuges", an Iranian official told AFP. Diplomats in Vienna told the French news agency that Iran had begun construction of 3,000 centrifuges at its main nuclear facility in the central town of Natanz. They also claimed Iran was stopping UN inspectors from installing surveillance cameras in the huge underground hall where the production lines, or cascades, of centrifuges are being set up.
Uranium enrichment uses centrifuges to make fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but can also produce the explosive material for atom bombs. In Washington, the US administration said the report – if confirmed – offered more proof of Tehran's defiant stance toward the international community. "If true, this would demonstrate that the Iranian government continues to disregard the will of the international community and the United Nations," said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei is to file a report by 21 February to the Security Council on Iranian compliance with the UN demand to freeze all enrichment work. The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze enrichment although the measures are not seen as far-reaching enough to hurt Iran's wider economy. Iran last weekend gave conflicting signals on its disputed nuclear work.
The head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security commission said Iran had started to install the 3,000 centrifuges but this was later denied by the atomic energy agency. Iran is building cascades in units of 164 centrifuges each and already has two such cascades running above-ground at a Natanz pilot plant which would only produce small amounts of enriched uranium. But the underground plant, protected in a bunker from possible air attack, could produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb in nine to eleven months, the London think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has said.
On Thursday, Iran kicked off anniversary festivities for the 1979 Islamic revolution, a 10-day celebration during which officials have promised a major announcement of progress on the nuclear front. "Our nation has always moved in a lawful, peaceful direction and it seeks to exercise its definitive inalienable rights," president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed, referring to Iran's insistence that it will not halt uranium enrichment.
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