Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are sponsoring a resolution to be voted on by the board of the International Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna later this week in which Iran is condemned for concealing a second uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom.
The five permanent members on the UN Security Council and Germany have drafted a resolution to be voted on by the board of the International Energy Agency (IAEA) later this week in which Iran is condemned for concealing a second uranium enrichment plant near the city of Qom. However, it was not yet certain whether the text would win the support of the majority of the 35 board members, and the resolution could still be withdrawn or amended at the last moment.
The IAEA has not adopted a resolution on Iran since February 2006, but Iran's revelation in September that it had been building a second enrichment plant – in defiance of UN sanctions to halt uranium enrichment altogether – came as a shock to many countries. Iran has been enriching uranium for several years at a plant in Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions. Uranium is used for fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly enriched form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb. In its first official report since IAEA experts inspected the Qom site last month, the IAEA complained a week ago that Tehran's delay in disclosure "does not contribute to the building of confidence."
Tehran claimed the site was planned as a back-up plant should the Natanz plant be bombed. During their visit to the Qom site, IAEA inspectors verified that the plant was built to contain around 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges, but experts say that would not be sufficient to cover a civilian power program. The Natanz plant currently has around 8,000 centrifuges installed.
