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Iran: IAEA Team Arrives in Iran for Weekend Visit International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is leading an agency team to Iran this weekend amid charges from an opposition group that Tehran is maintaining a secret nuclear facility disguised as a watch factory (see GSN, Feb. 20). The National Council of Resistance of Iran said yesterday that one building of the facility houses equipment to test centrifuges, and opposition officials predicted that the IAEA team would not be allowed into that building. “If the IAEA is denied access to a building, it will be a very serious matter,” said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security. The IAEA team is scheduled to visit a recently revealed uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, about 200 miles south of Tehran. The nuclear officials will be looking for confirmation of Iran’s claims that the nuclear program is being developed for peaceful purposes. “It’s an opportunity for Iran to really open up and come clean about all its nuclear activities, which we now know are very extensive, or it could be a weekend where there’s a serious confrontation between the inspectors and the Iranian government,” according to Albright (David Ensor, CNN.com, Feb. 20). The United States contends that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. “We believe Iran is actively and secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program under the guise of a ‘peaceful’ civilian program,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Lou Fintor. Fintor described the Iranian opposition group, however, as “an anti-Iranian terrorist organization.” The IAEA visit coincides with heavy activity and construction at Natanz (Anwar Iqbal, United Press International, Feb. 20). The Natanz site consists of three main areas, according to analysis of commercial satellite images by the ISIS. The first has three large underground structures and a vehicle tunnel leading underground, as well as several incomplete underground structures. The two largest underground buildings could contain centrifuges to enrich uranium, the analysis says. The second area contains six large, fenced, aboveground buildings. The third has a large, separate and unfenced building, which is most likely the main administrative building or a research and development facility, according to the ISIS (Institute for Science and International Society analysis, Feb. 20). U.S.-Russian Talks The United States and Russia are slated to discuss Iran’s nuclear fuel production and potential efforts to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, Reuters reported. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, the top U.S. arms control official, is expected in Moscow for three-day talks beginning Monday. “A lot of the basis for the Russian argument that Iran’s nuclear program is not a problem has now disappeared, and we need to talk to them about that and to think about how to deal with Iran in the post-Saddam period,” a U.S. official said (Reuters/MSNBC.com, Feb. 20).
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