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IAEA Blasts Iran on Centrifuge Designs, Uranium Traces, Polonium By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — Casting doubt on Iran’s claims to be coming clean about its long-hidden illicit nuclear programs, Iranian officials told U.N. experts for the first time last month that Tehran in 1994 obtained foreign designs for P-2 uranium enrichment centrifuges and subsequently tested some components based on the designs, according to a report the International Atomic Energy Agency submitted today to its Board of Governors (see GSN, Feb. 23). The agency said Iran did not mention the designs in an Oct. 21, 2003, letter to the agency that Tehran has claimed provided a complete picture of Iran’s previously secret nuclear activities. Iran’s omission from the letter “of any reference to its possession of the P-2 centrifuge design drawings and associated research, manufacturing and testing activities is a matter of serious concern” that “runs counter to Iran’s declaration,” the agency said. In addition, the agency disputed Iran’s estimates of how much plutonium it has produced in reprocessing experiments (see GSN, Nov. 11, 2003). The IAEA’s concern was based on environmental sampling in and around Iranian nuclear facilities. The confidential report, obtained today by Global Security Newswire, comes ahead of a Board of Governors meeting scheduled to begin March 8 at agency headquarters in Vienna. At recent board meetings, the United States has pushed unsuccessfully but with growing insistency for the board to refer the Iran case to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions on the country. At its last meeting, held in November, the board passed a resolution saying it considered it “essential that the declarations that have now been made by Iran amount to the correct, complete and final picture of Iran’s past and present nuclear program, to be verified by the agency.” The 35-member panel added that “any further serious Iranian failures [that] come to light” would trigger an emergency board meeting, potentially leading to a finding of Iranian “noncompliance” with its IAEA safeguards agreement and a consequent Security Council referral (see GSN, Nov. 26, 2003). The P-2 centrifuge program was only one of several areas where the agency indicated Iran has fallen short of responding completely to international concerns. The IAEA said Iran must still provide “clarification” about its centrifuge work and laser enrichment research, as well as activities related to polonium, which the agency called “a concern.” Among other applications, polonium can be used to facilitate the timing of a nuclear explosion. Iran still must resolve questions regarding low-enriched and high-enriched uranium traces found at two facilities in the country “and associated concerns,” the agency added. “Until this matter is satisfactorily resolved,” the IAEA said, “it will be very difficult for the agency to confirm that there has not been any undeclared nuclear material or activities.” “The agency is still waiting for Iran to provide requested information detailing the origin of the centrifuge equipment and components, the locations in Iran to which such equipment and components were moved and the associated details of time scales and the names of individuals involved. The resolution of this issue will depend to a great extent on the cooperation of the country from which the imported items are believed to have originated,” the agency said. The agency cited similarities in “the timelines of the [uranium] conversion and centrifuge programs” of Iran and Libya, calling the basic technology used by the two countries “very similar and … largely obtained from the same foreign sources.” The IAEA said it is “investigating … the supply routes and sources of such technology and related equipment and nuclear and non-nuclear materials” (see GSN, Feb. 23). In a related development, Iran said today that by next week it would temporarily cease all facets of uranium enrichment activity, apparently resolving a dispute over the terms of its November announcement that it would suspend such activity. The dispute centered on what the suspension entails, with the United States seeking an end to all enrichment-related activities, while Iran continued to assemble centrifuges at least until mid-January, according to today’s report. Iran refrained, however, from using them to enrich any uranium and has now agreed to place them under IAEA seal.
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