Iran macht weiter

Iran begins fresh atom enrichment despite powers' offer

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran began a fresh phase of uranium enrichment this week just as world powers presented it with incentives to halt nuclear fuel work, according to a U.N. nuclear watchdog agency report obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The report, emailed to the 35 states on the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board ahead of a meeting starting on Monday, also said Iran was pressing ahead with installing more cascades of centrifuge enrichment machines. Authored by IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei, the report said Iran resumed feeding "UF6" uranium gas into its pilot 164-centrifuge cascade in Natanz on Tuesday after a pause of several weeks to do test runs of the machines without UF6.

Tuesday was the day European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Tehran to hand over a packet of economic, technological and security incentives for Iran to suspend work which could eventually produce atomic bombs. The Islamic Republic says the goal of its nuclear fuel program is solely electricity generation for its economy. The West suspects Iran, the world's No. 4 oil producer, of creating a smokescreen for atomic bombmaking.

"This underlines the fact that the temporary halt was technical in nature. It's a continuation of Iranian policy to profit from all worlds, dialogue to gain time while continuing to strive for an atomic bomb," the source said. ElBaradei's report said Iran had also launched a new drive on Tuesday to transform raw uranium ore into UF6 gas at its Isfahan conversion plant. As of April, Iran has stockpiled 118 tonnes of UF6 at Isfahan.

A senior U.N. official familiar with ElBaradei's report said a few of the 164 centrifuges in the Natanz cascade had crashed since April but Iranian scientists apparently isolated the problem and kept the rest of the network running. But he said the pause in enrichment could also have been prompted by a wish "not to rock the boat" at a crunch time in Iran's stand-off with six world powers, who agreed last week to consider sanctions if Tehran rebuffed the incentives package.

With 164 centrifuges, it would take more than 10 years to produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU), the fissile core of an atomic bomb. But Iran has said it aims to have 3,000 centrifuges installed by early 2007, enough to yield highly enriched uranium for a warhead within a year if spinning nonstop. The report confirmed word from diplomats that new traces of hihgly enriched uranium had turned up on equipment that may have come from Lavizan-Shian, a former military site razed by Iran in 2004 before IAEA inspectors could get there to examine it.

ElBaradei's report said Tehran in general was still stonewalling IAEA probes into military links with nuclear fuel work, echoing earlier assessments. Vienna diplomats familiar with IAEA inquiries say Iran is withholding answers as bargaining chips for any talks with U.N. Security Council powers on its nuclear goals.
By Mark Heinrich

Wenn der Iran tatsächlich bis nächstes Jahr 10.000 funktionsfähige Zentrifugen besitzt, ist er wirklich nicht mehr weit davon entfernt, selbst Nuklearwaffen produzieren zu können. Die Bedingung für die, diese Woche angebotenen Gespräche, daß der Iran seine Urananreicherung vorerst stoppen soll, wird Ahmadinedschad wohl kaum erfüllen, denn alles andere würde für ihn einen erheblichen Gesichtsverlust bedeuten.