Global Security Newswire

The International Atomic Energy Agency yesterday confirmed Iran has begun producing 20 percent-enriched uranium with a second array of enrichment centrifuges, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Aug. 9).

"Iran was feeding nuclear material to the two interconnected 164-machine centrifuge cascades" on July 17, when IAEA auditors examined the nation's Natanz uranium enrichment complex, U.N. nuclear watchdog spokeswoman Gill Tudor said.

The Persian Gulf nation in February began refining low-enriched uranium from its stockpile to 20 percent, ostensibly to produce isotopes for a medical research reactor in Tehran. The United States and other Western powers, though, have feared the process could help Iran produce nuclear-weapon material, which has an enrichment level around 95 percent, according to AP. Tehran insists its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful.

Iran was refining the uranium "contrary to U.N. Security Council resolutions affirming that Iran should suspend all enrichment related activities," Tudor said. The council to date has adopted four sanctions resolutions aimed at pressuring Iran to halt enrichment (Veronika Oleksyn, Associated Press I/Google News, Aug. 9).

Tehran is prepared to address its nuclear efforts in talks with Washington, a top adviser to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday.

"While we do not have any faith in the American government ... Iran is ready for talks on its nuclear program," Agence France-Presse quoted Ali Akbar Velayati as saying.

"Iran has reservations about the composition of the [P-5+1] group (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany) but remains committed to resolving the problem through dialogue," Velayati said (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Aug. 9).

U.S. leaders "must be dreaming" if they believe Iran can be pressured to abandon its atomic work, AP quoted him as saying (Associated Press II/Google News, Aug. 9).

Still, Iranian legislators and officials believe international economic penalties "could have a significant impact on import and export," German lawmaker and foreign policy expert Rainer Stinner said after visiting Tehran (Juergen Baetz, Associated Press III/Yahoo!News, Aug. 9).

Other analysts, though, said China, Russia, India and Turkey were stepping up to handle Iranian energy demands previously met by Western companies, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The countries, which have objected to independent U.S. and EU penalties enacted against Iran, were pursuing massive gasoline to sales to the Middle Eastern nation as well as deals for developing its petroleum and gas fields.

The four nations "are making it very clear they are not going to go along with the new American and European efforts to ratchet up pressure on Iran," said Ben Rhode, an expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The United States and European Union have urged the governments not to exploit Iranian markets opened by recent penalties (see GSN, July 30). U.S. President Barack Obama delivered one such plea in a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, according to U.S. officials (Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8).

Tehran yesterday announced it would stop dealing in U.S. dollars or euros in retaliation to the most recent U.N. sanctions resolution, AP reported.

"To fight sanctions, we will remove the dollar and euro from our foreign exchange basket and will replace them with (the Iranian) rial and the currency of any country cooperating with us," Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told state media. "We consider these currencies (dollar and euro) dirty and won't sell oil in dollar and euro."

"The Koreans also need to be slapped," Rahimi added, referring to South Korea's development of punitive measures targeting Iran.

"We will increase tariffs by 200 percent. We will hike it so much so that no one will be able to buy foreign goods. We should not buy the products of our enemies," the official said. "Students can force their parents not to buy foreign goods" (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press III/Google News, Aug. 9).

Iran's ambassador to South Korea yesterday said Seoul was not obliged to adopt unilateral restrictions on trade with Tehran, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

No U.N. member nation "has any more obligation than is being set ... internationally," Ambassador Mohammad-Reza Bakhtiari said. "[The South Koreans] don't have to follow suit if there's a third party asking them to have more restrictions or sanctions unilaterally being imposed upon a member country of the United Nations" (Yonhap News Agency I/Tehran Times, Aug. 10).

The South Korean petroleum refining firm Hyundai Oilbank Corp. yesterday said it would seek additional oil sources. The firm currently buys about one-fifth of its oil from Iran (Yonhap News Agency II/Tradingmarkets.com, Aug. 10).

The head of Iran's central bank called Sunday for the nation to reduce purchases from abroad as a means of countering international penalties, AFP reported.

"Reducing the consumption of imported goods means confronting the sanctions. There is no other way," Mahmoud Bahmani said. "Sanctions are happening and we should not be scared or frightened. We should convert the sanctions into opportunities."

"We need to decrease imports. We should not allow all goods to enter the country," Bahmani said, suggesting Iran could manufacture most goods domestically and ramp up taxes on luxury imports.

Iran should also cut back on its use of gasoline, he said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Aug. 8).

Meanwhile, Iran has prepared mass burial sites for U.S. soldiers in case of an attempted attack, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer said today.

"The mass graves that used to be for burying [former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's] soldiers have now been prepared again for U.S. soldiers, and this is the reason for digging this big number of graves," AP quoted Gen. Hossein Kan'ani Moghadam as saying.

"Iran will have no choice but to strike the American bases in the region" in response to an attack, Moghadam said. "The heavy costs of such a war will not be just on the Islamic Republic of Iran. America and other countries should accept that this would be the start of an extensive war in the region" (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press IV/Google News, Aug. 10).

Iranian military forces have been stationed at the nation's Bushehr nuclear power plant to assess air defenses around the facility, which is scheduled to launch operations within weeks, the Inter Press Service reported yesterday. Iranian forces destroyed three unmanned aerial vehicles in a drill on Aug. 2, the Web site Mardom Salari reported.

To avoid the dispersal of radioactive material throughout the Middle East, any attack on the Bushehr facility would have to take place before nuclear material is transferred to the site, according to the Inter Press Service (Marsha Cohen, Inter Press Service, Aug. 9).

Elsewhere, 210 lawmakers in Europe last week urged the Obama administration to remove an Iranian resistance group from a terrorist watch list, the Washington Times reported.

Continuing to classify the People's Mujahedeen as a terrorist entity "will further hamper our efforts to stop the Iranian regime from obtaining nuclear weapons," said the lawmakers, who including members of the European Parliament and legislative bodies in France, Italy and the United Kingdom (James Morrison, Washington Times, Aug. 8).