Iran moves closer to nuke warhead capacity
Iran moved closer to being able to produce nuclear warheads Monday with formal notification that it will enrich uranium to higher levels, even while insisting that the move was meant only to provide fuel for its research reactor.
Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh told The Associated Press that he informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of the decision to enrich at least some of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to 20 percent, considered the threshold value for highly enriched uranium.
Soltanieh, who represents Iran at the Vienna-based IAEA, also said that the U.N. agency's inspectors now overseeing enrichment to low levels would be able to stay on site to fully monitor the process. And he blamed world powers for Iran's decision, asserting that it was their fault that a plan that foresaw Russian and French involvement in supplying the research reactor had failed.
"Until now, we have not received any response to our positive logical and technical proposal," he said. "We cannot leave hospitals and patients desperately waiting for radio isotopes" being produced at the Tehran reactor and used in cancer treatment, he added.
Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to take Iranian low enriched uranium, further enriching it and return it in the form of fuel rods for the reactor — and in broader terms for turning down other overtures meant to diminish concerns about its nuclear agenda.
At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama's attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Tehran for not reciprocating.
"No U.S. president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran," he said. "All these initiatives have been rejected."
Israel, Iran's most implacable foe, said Iran's enrichment plans are "additional proof of the fact that Iran is ridiculing the entire world."
"The right response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions on Iran," said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already announced Sunday that his country would significantly enrich at least some of the country's stockpile of uranium. Still, Monday's notification to the IAEA was important as formal confirmation of the plan, particularly because of the rash of conflicting signals sent in recent months by Iranian officials on the issue.
Although material for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead must be enriched to a level of 90 percent or more, just getting its stockpile to the 20 percent mark would be a major step for the country's nuclear program. While enriching to 20 percent would take about one year, using up to 2,000 centrifuges at Tehran's underground Natanz facility, any next step — moving from 20 to 90 percent — would take only half a year and between 500-1,000 centrifuges.
Achieving the 20-percent level "would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium," said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks suspected proliferators.
Soltanieh declined to say how much of Iran's stockpile — now estimated at 1.8 tons — would be enriched. Nor did he say when the process would begin. Albright said enriching to higher levels could begin within a day — or only in several months, depending on how far technical preparations had progressed.
Apparent technical problems could also slow the process, he said.
Iran's enrichment program "should be like a Christmas tree in full light," he said. "In fact, the lights are flickering."
While Iran would be able to enrich up to 20 percent, it is not considered technically sophisticated enough to turn that material into fuel rods for the Tehran reactor. A senior official from a member nation of the 35-country IAEA board said that issue cast Iran's stated reason for higher enrichment into doubt.
Legal constraints could tie Iran's hands as well. The senior official said he believed Tehran was obligated to notify the agency 60 days in advance of starting to enrich to higher levels.
The official asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue. The IAEA had no immediate comment.
On Sunday, Iranian officials said higher enrichment would start on Tuesday.
The Iranian move came just days after Ahmadinejad appeared to move close to endorsing the original deal, which foresaw Tehran exporting the bulk of its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment and then conversion for fuel rods for the research reactor.
That plan was welcomed internationally because it would have delayed Iran's ability to make a nuclear weapons by shipping out about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile, thereby leaving it with not enough to make a bomb. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, insisting it needs to enrich to create fuel for an envisaged nuclear reactor network.
The proposal was endorsed by the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — the six powers that originally elicited a tentative approval from Iran in landmark talks last fall. Since then, however, mixed messages from Tehran have infuriated the U.S. and its European allies, who claim Iran is only stalling for time as it attempts to build a nuclear weapon.
Even before Iran's formal notification of the IAEA, some of those nations criticized the plan and suggested it would be met by increased pressure for new penalties on the Islamic Republic.
Iran has defied five U.N. Security Council resolutions — and three sets of U.N. sanctions — aimed at pressuring it to freeze enrichment, and has instead steadily expanded its program.
Iran's enrichment plans "would be a deliberate breach" of the resolutions, the British Foreign Office said. In Berlin, Ulrich Wilhelm, the spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Germany and its allies were watching developments and were prepared to "continue along the path of raising diplomatic pressure."
EU Mission to Tehran Draws U.S. Ire
An 11-person European Parliament delegation is scheduled to visit Tehran next week, drawing a rebuke from U.S. lawmakers concerned the visit could legitimize Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.
The Jan. 7-11 mission marks the first visit by a Western parliamentary body to Tehran in more than a year. It comes as Mr. Ahmadinejad's security forces have accelerated a crackdown on Iran's political opposition.
The trip, set to occur a week after the expiration of President Barack Obama's deadline for Iran to respond to international calls for negotiations over its nuclear program, is feeding debate among the U.S. and its European allies over how long to keep open the window for diplomacy with Tehran.
"We believe that a visit from the EP would send the wrong message to the Iranian government and undermine the international efforts to end their nuclear program," 15 U.S. House members wrote European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek last week. "We urge you not to authorize the visit at this time."
Both Democrats and Republicans signed the congressional letter, including Reps. Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), and Shelley Berkley (D., Nev.). Ms. Berkeley heads the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue within the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
A spokesman for the White House's National Security Council declined to comment on the European Parliament plans. Senior U.S. officials have stressed in recent days that the Obama administration intends to maintain an open diplomatic channel to Tehran, even as the U.S. and its allies move to enact new economic and financial sanctions on Iran.
The White House last week said it would support a possible trip to Iran by former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, has floated in recent weeks the idea of visiting Iran to meet with senior Iranian leaders and members of Iran's parliamentary body, the Majlis, according to people briefed on the potential mission.
A spokesman for Sen. Kerry stressed last week that the Democratic lawmaker had no plans to visit Tehran. But Iran's state media this week quoted senior Iranian officials saying Sen. Kerry had filed a formal request to visit Tehran.
Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Sen. Kerry, again said Wednesday that the senator has "no plans" to travel to Tehran and that "he never discusses any private or diplomatic conversations or correspondence." Mr. Kerry would be the highest-level U.S. official to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The possibility of a Kerry visit has drawn concern from both sides of the ideological spectrum and from Iranian human-rights activists who say he could lend the Iranian government legitimacy.
The European Parliament delegation will be headed by Barbara Lochbihler, a noted German human-rights campaigner, and Kurt Lechner, a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party. Ms. Lochbihler wrote her U.S. counterparts this week and stressed that she plans to go ahead with the mission.
She wrote that "serious representatives of the Iranian civil society" have "urged the delegation to travel."
The members of the European Parliament who plan to visit Iran represent a special parliamentary committee known as the Delegation for Relations with Iran. The group is one of several dozen delegations that monitor relations with different countries or regions.
Mr. Lechner, who serves as deputy chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Iran, said in an interview that the timing of the visit was "unfortunate" but that the delegation decided to go ahead because it is difficult to schedule such missions.
Two previously scheduled visits to Tehran were canceled on short notice by their Iranian counterparts, Mr. Lechner said. "I will be very interested to see whether this visit is also canceled," he added.
Mr. Lechner said the delegation plans to meet with Iranian lawmakers, diplomats based in Tehran, academics and members of Iran's opposition movement. The delegation specifically plans to discuss Iran's use of the death penalty against minors as well as women's rights. And he said he plans to raise economic and energy issues.
Mr. Lechner said he will also condemn Tehran's use of violence against democracy activists. "The talks will be difficult," he said, while adding that he doesn't see the visit as signaling a change in relations between the European Union and Iran. "We are not diplomats," Mr. Lechner said.
