Global Security Newswire

The United States on Friday questioned Iran's stated willingness to halt production of higher-enriched uranium if it received the material from Western powers, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 30).

Last month's offer by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad followed his nation's announcement in June of plans to move manufacturing of 20 percent-enriched uranium to a new site and to boost generation of the material by threefold (see GSN, Sept. 15). The higher enrichment level could help Tehran more quickly produce nuclear-weapon material, which must be refined to roughly 90 percent; Iran has maintained its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful and that the 20-percent enriched uranium is intended to fuel a medical research reactor.

"Ahmadinejad makes a lot of empty promises," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "He knows exactly what has to happen. If Iran has a serious proposal to put forward, it has to put it forward to the [International Atomic Energy Agency]."

The Vienna, Austria-based organization "can study it" with Washington "and then we can respond, but from our perspective at the moment, this looks like a diversion from the real issue," the spokeswoman said (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Oct. 1).

Iran would not grant the U.N. nuclear watchdog free license to audit its atomic facilities, state media quoted the nation's envoy to the agency as saying. The U.N. agency conducts regular inspections and deploys technology in Iran in an effort to ensure civilian nuclear materials and technologies are not turned toward weapons operations.

“Any measure to increase inspections or install cameras should be taken within the framework of the safeguards agreements,” Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told the Iranian Students' News Agency in remarks made public on Saturday.

“We hold talks on each request of the agency for months. And after we are satisfied that the agency’s request is justified and logical, we accept that particular request on condition that they will not make such a request once again,” Soltanieh said. “We have not given and will not give them a blank check for inspections” (Mehr News Agency, Oct. 1).

“As a member of the agency, we would like to show ... that just as we will not stop our nuclear and enrichment activities for a second, we will not stop resolving the agency's ambiguities within the framework of our commitments,” Press TV quoted him as saying.

The U.N. organization's examinations of Iranian atomic sites have yet to turn up weapon-usable nuclear material and have affirmed the nation's peaceful intentions, the diplomat said.

"Iran's national security considerations (however) must be taken into account, because over the past years the agency has been careless and in some cases mistakenly released some confidential information about Iran and other countries,” he said (Press TV, Oct. 1).

Israel has become increasingly worried that Iran might adopt an atomic strategy similar to its own, the Jerusalem Post quoted defense officials as saying. Israel neither confirms nor denies it possesses a nuclear deterrent.

“The possibility that Iran would adopt such a policy is growing,” said one high-level official participant in matters connected to defense.

“Iran very well could continue on its current course for a while, during which it continues to enrich uranium like it is today but without going to the breakout stage and publicly making a nuclear weapon,” the source said. Tehran, though, might not promptly announce the assembly of a nuclear device in order to avoid international reprisals, the insider said (Yaakov Katz, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 3).