TEHRAN, 20 July 2003 — Iran said yesterday reports that enriched uranium was found in samples taken by UN nuclear inspectors in Iran were questionable and called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to clear up the issue. “The issue that samples taken contain enriched uranium is very questionable and we are expecting this issue to become clear in our talks with the IAEA,” state television quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.
Diplomats have told Reuters IAEA inspectors found enriched uranium in environmental samples taken in Iran, which could mean Tehran has been enriching uranium without informing the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency.
The diplomats also said initial analysis of the samples showed uranium enrichment levels possibly consistent with an attempt to make weapons-grade material. They said it could also be the result of contamination, though Tehran would need to explain how this happened to the IAEA.
Enrichment is a process which purifies uranium to make it useable in nuclear fuel — or nuclear weapons. Iran, which Washington last year dubbed a member of an “axis of evil” with Iraq and North Korea, says it has no intention of building atomic arms and merely wants to use nuclear energy to generate electricity.
Iran says the IAEA has not raised the issue of the sample results with Tehran. “It is the responsibility of the IAEA to make comments on this issue, not diplomats who do not have exact information on such things,” Asefi was quoted as saying by state radio.
The IAEA says initial sample results from Iran are being analyzed and it expects to take more samples in coming weeks. IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei neither confirmed nor denied the report, but said: “Any media reporting on sample results would be pure speculation.”
An IAEA team arrived in Tehran yesterday to carry out further inspections of Iran’s nuclear program. “It is a routine and preplanned visit of Iran’s nuclear facilities. They visit Iran’s nuclear sites according to their scheduled plans,” Khalil Mousavi, spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told Reuters.
An IAEA spokeswoman confirmed this was a routine visit unrelated to the agency’s intensive inspections currently under way to answer the many open questions the IAEA has about Iran’s nuclear program, including its research on uranium enrichment. The diplomats who spoke to Reuters did not specify at which facility in Iran the samples containing enriched uranium had been taken from, although the Washington Post reported yesterday that the sample with enriched uranium was from Natanz.
The central town of Natanz is the location of Iran’s only declared uranium enrichment facility, although opposition groups fiercely opposed to Iran’s Islamic rulers claim there are several others. “The claims about finding enriched uranium in Natanz are completely baseless,” television quoted Asefi as saying.
Iran has denied IAEA inspectors permission to take environmental samples at least one other facility, the Kalaye Electric Company near Tehran, where parts for enrichment centrifuges were assembled. Iran is not required to allow samples to be taken at Kalaye under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it has signed. But the IAEA has repeatedly urged Iran to sign an Additional Protocol to the NPT, which would allow it to carry out short-notice inspections at a wider range of sites.
