Iran increased its output of enriched uranium that world powers are concerned may eventually be used for a nuclear weapon, according to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Iran almost doubled its stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium, to 145 kilograms (320 pounds), from 73.7 kilograms in February, the IAEA said today in a restricted 11-page report seen by Bloomberg News. Iran had tripled its production of the material in the three months to Feb. 24.
IAEA inspectors reported they’d found “the presence of particles” of 27 percent-enriched uranium at Iran’s Fordo facility. The particles were a result of “technical reasons beyond the operator’s control,” Iran told the Vienna-based agency, which is looking into the matter. Uranium enriched over 20 percent is technically weapons grade, though most nuclear bombs used enrich the heavy metal to 90 percent levels.
The report is the first since IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano returned from Iran on May 21 with commitments from the Islamic republic’s government to improve cooperation with inspectors. While the Persian Gulf nation insists that its atomic work is peaceful, it has been under an IAEA probe since 2003 over concern it seeks nuclear-weapon capabilities.
‘Credible Assurance’
“The agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities,” the IAEA said in the report, which will be officially released on June 4 when the IAEA’s 35-member board of governors convenes in Vienna. “The agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
The IAEA also found Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to less than 5 percent grew to 6,232 kilograms from 5,451 kilograms reported in February.
The number of centrifuges, the fast-spinning machines that purify the heavy metal, installed at Iran’s fuel-fabrication plant in Natanz, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Tehran, rose to 9,330 compared with 9,156 in February. Machines at the Fordo facility, built into the side of a mountain, rose to over 500 from 300 in the last report.
Nuclear Negotiations
About 630 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, if further purified, could yield the 15 to 22 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium an expert needs to produce a bomb, according to the London-based Verification Research, Training and Information Center, a non-governmental observer to the IAEA that’s funded by European governments.
Iran and world powers yesterday agreed to hold a new round of talks about the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear program next month after failing to bridge differences during two days of negotiations in Baghdad.
Negotiators from the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, China and Russia plan to meet their Iranian counterparts June 18 and 19 in Moscow. It will mark the third attempt in three months to address international worries that Iran’s atomic energy program may be a cover for secret weapons work, and Iran’s concerns about sanctions and diplomatic isolation.