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Iran Agrees to Uranium Enrichment Suspension; IAEA Releases Report Before Meeting By Greg Webb WASHINGTON — In a deal finalized yesterday, Iran has agreed to suspend all activities related to the production of materials that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons (see GSN, Nov. 12). The agreement between Iran and three European Union nations — France, Germany and the United Kingdom — calls for Tehran to maintain the suspension while the parties negotiate a permanent solution to the nuclear crisis that began nearly two years ago when the first detailed reports emerged of an extensive secret Iranian nuclear program (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2002). In exchange for the suspension, the EU nations have reportedly agreed to stop the issue from moving beyond the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors, a body that could refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council. The United States has urged the board to do just that over a number of meetings in the past year, but yesterday’s agreement would probably wipe out that possibility, the Washington Post reported today. The administration might not even pursue its case at the board’s next meeting, scheduled to begin Nov. 25. “That’s a decision that will have to be made this week,” a U.S. official told the Post. “But I can’t imagine how anyone could argue to the president the tactical benefits of trying to do that again because the result would be U.S. diplomatic isolation.” Under the terms of yesterday’s agreement, Iran “has decided, on a voluntary basis, to continue and extend its suspension to include all enrichment related and reprocessing activities.” The agreement specifically bars “all tests or production at any uranium conversion installation,” an issue that has been the recent focus of the nuclear dispute. News accounts today reported that IAEA inspectors arrived Saturday in Iran on a previously scheduled trip, and would begin to seal and tag Iranian nuclear equipment. They planned to complete that work before the agency’s board meeting next week. Iran had previously agreed to a more general suspension of nuclear activities, but had interpreted that freeze in a way to allow continued work on converting uranium ore into a gaseous form usable in enrichment centrifuges. The U.N. agency reported today that Iran had processed more than 22 tons of uranium yellowcake this year (see GSN, Oct. 6). Yesterday’s agreement outlines the structure of future nuclear talks. A steering committee would meet in the first half of December and set up three working groups on political and security issues, technology and cooperation and nuclear issues. The EU nations have reportedly offered to improve trade and technical cooperation with Iran, and to provide a light-water nuclear power reactor, if Tehran agrees to permanently end its nuclear fuel cycle activities. IAEA ReportThe International Atomic Energy Agency circulated its quarterly report on Iran today, after delaying the release over the weekend for the impending EU-Iran agreement. While not providing large amounts of new information, the report offers a comprehensive description of Iran’s long-term effort to develop nuclear technology. “Iran has made substantial efforts over the past two decades to master an independent nuclear fuel cycle. To that end, Iran has conducted experiments to acquire the know-how for almost every aspect of that fuel cycle,” the report says. The Iranian effort has included uranium mining, ore conversion, uranium enrichment, fuel fabrication, heavy-water production and plutonium separation. The agency report praises Iran for opening its program to agency inspection, saying, “Since December 2003, Iran has facilitated in a timely manner agency access … to nuclear materials and facilities, as well as other locations in the country, and has permitted the agency to take environmental samples as requested by the agency.” That cooperation appears to have eased earlier suspicions that Iran had actually enriched uranium to high levels in its prototype facilities. Agency sampling there discovered traces of uranium containing up to 70 percent uranium 235. Weapon-grade uranium is generally described as containing more than 80 percent. Iran has contended that the uranium contamination was already present when it acquired enrichment centrifuges from a still-unidentified outside source — reportedly the nuclear smuggling network once headed by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The agency report concludes, “The environmental sampling data available to date tends, on balance, to support Iran’s statement about the origin of much of the contamination.” Despite this positive news for Iran, the agency report complains of past and continuing hindrances and ultimately judges that it cannot “conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran.”
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