Iran Installing Advanced Centrifuges

Iran has placed next-generation uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility as part of a program it could tap to produce a nuclear weapon ingredient, Reuters reported today (see GSN, April 3).

Tehran in recent months has added 300 centrifuges to its existing installation of 3,000 machines at the site.  Some of the new devices are older, less efficient P-1 centrifuges, similar to those already deployed, while some are newer, advanced models.  The centrifuges are split between two networks, or “cascades” (see GSN, Feb. 25).

“One of the two cascades is using the advanced model, the older the other one.  There are more machines in the advanced cascade than the 164 typically used for the (older model),” one diplomat said.

The diplomats suggested that the new installation was intended to “state a fait accompli” that Iran would maintain its uranium enrichment program in defiance of U.N. Security Council demands.  Tehran insists the program is only intended to generate nuclear power plant fuel.

“Iran may not have had enough of the advanced one ready yet to put into two cascades.  But they wanted to show the world they could go beyond the threshold of 3,000 now enriching at Natanz (despite international pressure) to stop,” the diplomat added.

Iran is preparing to test the high-speed advanced centrifuges with uranium gas following preliminary checks, but it remains uncertain when the machines will enter operation, the diplomat said.

“Iran has already done most of the necessary vacuum tests, including leakage checks, to make sure the (latest) centrifuges are in working order and to activate them,” he said.

According to analysts, Iran seeks to upgrade its existing centrifuge fleet to use increasing numbers of the advanced centrifuge, a modified version of an advanced Pakistani design obtained from the West through nuclear smuggling channels.  The new model can enrich uranium between two and three times faster than the older P-1 machine.

A high-level diplomat close to an International Atomic Energy Agency probe of Iran’s nuclear activities did not contest the report that the advanced centrifuges had been installed, but said it remains uncertain if Iran can operate them efficiently (Mark Heinrich, Reuters, April 4).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again rejected any consideration of suspending Iran’s uranium enrichment program in exchange for new political and economic incentives put forward by the five permanent Security Council member nations and Germany, Agence France-Presse reported.

“This is a non-negotiable subject,” Ahmadinejad told Kyodo News.  “Iran is a nuclear country and has no reason to give up the technology.  If there are to be any preconditions, we must propose preconditions” (Agence France-Presse/ChannelNewsAsia, April 4).

Meanwhile, China said yesterday that it had provided no new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Associated Press reported.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said a Wednesday AP report that Beijing had disclosed new information was “totally groundless and out of ulterior motives” (Associated Press/Google News, April 3).

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