Iran Easing Nuclear Fears By Converting Uranium To Fuel

[HuffingtonPost]

By Yeganeh Torbati                

DUBAI, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Iran acknowledged on Tuesday that  it was converting some of its higher-grade enriched uranium into  reactor fuel, a move that could help to prevent a dispute with  the West over its nuclear programme hitting a crisis in  mid-2013.                

Conversion is one way for Iran to slow the growth in its  stockpile of material that could be used to make a bomb. That  stockpile is currently projected to reach a level intolerable to  Israel in mid-year, just as Iran's room for negotiation is being  limited by a presidential election in June.                

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was  asked at a weekly news conference about a Reuters report that  Iran has converted small amounts of its 20-percent enriched  uranium into reactor fuel.                

"This work is being done and all its reports have been sent  to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a complete  manner," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.                

It was Iran's first acknowledgment that it had apparently  resumed converting into fuel small amounts of uranium enriched  to a concentration of 20 percent fissile material.                

Iran's production of that higher-grade uranium worries the  major powers because it is only a short technical step away from  the 90-percent purity needed for a weapon.                

On-off negotiations with the major powers and four rounds of  U.N. Security Council sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to  stop its enrichment activities, and the IAEA has been refused  full access to investigate other suspect elements of the nuclear  programme.                

Iran denies that it is seeking a weapon and says its nuclear  programme serves only peaceful purposes such as electricity and  the production of medical isotopes.                                

CRITICAL MASS                

But Israel, widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed  country in the Middle East, has indicated that Iran's stockpile  will reach a level in June at which it considers it must attack  to stop Iran acquiring enough fissile material for a bomb. With  a presidential election taking place that month, Tehran's room  to make concessions to foreign powers is limited.                

A U.S. official sought to reassure Israel this week on the  determination of President Barack Obama, due to visit the region  shortly, to curb Iran's nuclear programme, according to an  Israeli official who declined to be named.                

Rose Gottemoeller, acting U.S. undersecretary of state for  arms control and international security, "reiterated the  Americans' commitment to preventing a nuclear Iran, and their  worries about regional proliferation, were Iran to go nuclear",  said the official, who met Gottemoeller.                

Iran averted a potential crisis last year by converting some  100 kg of its 20-percent enriched uranium into fuel, suggesting  to some that it was carefully keeping below the threshold set by  Israel, while still advancing its nuclear technology.                

It is not believed to have enriched uranium beyond 20  percent. A fuller picture is unlikely until a new IAEA report on  Iran's nuclear activity, due by late February.                

Separately, officials from the IAEA are due to hold talks in  Tehran on Wednesday in the hope of restarting their long-stalled  inquiry into Iran's nuclear programme.                

The U.N. agency, whose mission is to prevent the spread of  nuclear weapons, has been trying for a year to negotiate a  so-called structured approach with Iran that would give its  inspectors access to sites, officials and documents.                

The IAEA especially wants access to the Parchin military  complex southeast of Tehran where it believes explosives tests  relevant for nuclear weapons development may have taken place  and been subsequently concealed, allegations that iran denies.                                

"READY FOR DEAL"                

Mehmanparast said Iran was ready to come to a "comprehensive  agreement" with the IAEA if Tehran's nuclear rights were  recognised. Part of this agreement could include a visit to  Parchin, he said.                

But Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Atomic Energy  Organisation of Iran, on Tuesday criticised the IAEA's handling  of documents related to Iran, signalling the continued mistrust  between the agency and Tehran.                

"Unfortunately their system is not sufficiently secure,"  Abbasi-Davani said, according to the Iranian Students' News  Agency (ISNA). "They need to be more careful in their  interactions with Iran."                

Last year Abbasi-Davani accused the U.N. agency of a  "cynical approach" and mismanagement, and said "terrorists and  saboteurs might have intruded" into the agency.                

Iran and six world powers, known as the P5+1, are due to  hold a new round of talks on the nuclear programme in Kazakhstan  on Feb. 26.                

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that the  powers were ready to respond if Iran came to the talks prepared  to discuss "real substance".                

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, visiting Moscow, said  Iran was "counting on there being positive and constructive  steps made to resolve this problem at the upcoming meeting".                

In Tehran, Salehi's spokesman Mehmanparast responded to news  that North Korea had conducted its third nuclear test in  defiance of existing United Nations resolutions by saying: "We  need to come to a point where no country will have any nuclear  weapons."        (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Via: HuffingtonPost