17 November 2009
IAEA Report Shows Iranian Nuclear Activities Have Expanded
Washington — An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear activities underscores the country’s continued refusal to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly says, and he expressed doubts that Iran will formally respond to the agency’s offer to allow it to enrich its uranium in another country to provide fuel for a medical-research reactor.
Instead of complying with its nuclear obligations, the report shows that Iran has “expanded its work in uranium enrichment and heavy-water-related activities, and has conducted a multiyear effort to construct a clandestine enrichment facility, in contravention of the U.N. Security Council requirements and IAEA obligations,” Kelly told reporters November 17.
The IAEA report, published November 16, comes after its inspectors visited Iran’s newly revealed nuclear facility near the city of Qom.
Under a 2003 agreement with the IAEA, Iran is required to provide the international agency with information on its nuclear facilities as soon as it has decided to build them or authorized their construction. According to press reports, Iran had told the inspectors that construction on the site had begun in 2007. But in its report, the IAEA said commercially available satellite images of the Qom site indicated that there had been construction there between 2002 and 2004, which was resumed in 2006 and has since continued.
Along with noting Iran’s failure to declare the facility according to its obligations, the report “underlines the fact that its failure to declare this facility reduces confidence about the absence of other nuclear facilities that have not been declared to the IAEA,” Kelly said.
According to the report, the Qom facility “was built to accommodate approximately 3,000 centrifuges,” Kelly said. U.S. officials have said that number is too small to produce a significant quantity of uranium for nuclear power, but would be the right size if Iran was building it to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one or two nuclear bombs per year.
“The report notes that the purpose of the facility and the chronology of its construction require clarification from Iran,” Kelly said.
The spokesman said the IAEA report says that for more than a year, Iran has refused the agency’s requests to “provide substantive explanations regarding its past work to develop a nuclear warhead and other possible military dimensions to its nuclear program.”
Kelly said the United States will continue to consult with the P5+1 group, which comprises the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France and Russia — along with Germany, who have been working to convince Iran to end its nuclear weapons program.
He said the United States is still hoping that Iran will formally respond to a proposed deal from the IAEA that would allow Iran to obtain nuclear fuel for medical isotopes. (See “Iran’s Acceptance of Enrichment Deal Would Build World Confidence.”)
“We are still not prepared to close the door on that possibility right now,” Kelly said. However, “the failure to provide a response to this and its overall noncompliance, as laid out in the IAEA agreement, frankly doesn’t give us a whole lot of confidence that they will respond formally.”
Kelly said the Obama administration hesitates to give Iran a formal deadline to respond. “I would just say that time is very short,” he said, noting that Iran is continuing its uranium-enrichment activities.
