Financial Times – Iran is a “matter of months” away from completing the next phase of its nuclear programme, diplomats said on Thursday, in response to a leaked letter from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
The letter, written by Olli Heinonen, IAEA deputy director general, indicates that Iran has installed up to 1,312 centrifuges at a facility in Natanz and is using them to enrich uranium – a process that could produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.
“This certainly demonstrates complete defiance of the United Nations Security Council,” said a western diplomat, referring to a series of Security Council resolutions demanding that Tehran cease uranium enrichment. “It shows they are going full speed ahead.”
Iran, which insists its purposes are peaceful, is currently proceeding with plans to install 3,000 centrifuges – which in theory could produce enough uranium for a weapon within a year. But in practice, it could take many times that long to produce enough weapons material, and it would take still longer to engineer a bomb.
In February, Tehran told the IAEA that it had installed the first two 164-centrifuge “cascades” of the system and had nearly completed another two.
Mr Heinonen’s letter, dated April 18, said that Tehran had now installed eight cascades and had begun putting feedstock into them. Diplomats estimated this meant that Iran could expect to install all 3,000 centrifuges in “a matter of months” – in another three or four months.
In February, Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, told the Financial Times that Tehran could install 3,000 centrifuges in six months to a year from that time.
“Where they are now is where you would expect them to be now in installing these machines, but it still leaves significant questions to what the capability is,” said a European official. “We don’t know how many machines they actually have and we don’t know how well they’re operating.”
Diplomats added that Mr Heinonen’s letter was partly intended to inform IAEA governments of the true status of Iran’s programme in the wake of claims last week by Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, Iran’s president, that the country had reached “industrial” capacity. The letter also censured Tehran for limiting IAEA access to its facilities.