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Iran Denies Moving Uranium From Isfahan
Iran has not moved processed uranium away from a nuclear site that is under watch by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a spokesman for the Iran’s Foreign Ministry said today (see GSN, April 12). “Our nuclear activities are transparent and under the supervision of the IAEA,” said spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi. “Iran seeks nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. It would be meaningless for Iran to smuggle” uranium from Isfahan, he said (Reuters, April 13). Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani pointed to a decree by leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banning production, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons as a primary reason why Tehran would not develop atomic armaments. “It is much more important for us to abide by this decree than the articles of the [Nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty and its Additional Protocol,” Rohani said, according to Agence France-Presse. “We are fully aware that moving towards acquiring atomic weapons equals losing the international community’s trust as well as a serious obstacle on the way to development of our country,” he added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, April 12). Israeli intelligence indicated that Iran was nearing “a point of no return” in its development of a nuclear weapon, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday. Sharon also said European negotiators were softening their position and seemed open to Iran’s request to keep some uranium enrichment capability. “This can’t be delayed much longer,” said a senior Israeli official traveling with Sharon. “There is very little time until the point of no return is reached.” Sharon did not, however, indicate that Israel was preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear installations, the New York Times reported. U.S. officials said that while the evidence Sharon presented was not new, he was clearly pushing Bush not to allow the Iran-EU negotiations to drag on. “The Israelis consider the Iranians a big threat and they saw this as another opportunity to convey that to the president,” a U.S. official said. Washington, meanwhile, has not indicated such a high degree of urgency on Tehran’s nuclear program, according to the Times. In the most recent public U.S. testimony on the subject, Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress on Feb. 16 that “unless constrained by a nuclear nonproliferation agreement, Tehran probably will have the ability to produce nuclear weapons early in the next decade.” Jacoby also said that Iran possesses medium-range missiles that can reach Israel, and that it may be able to develop a long-range missile by 2015 (David Sanger, New York Times, April 13).
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