VIENNA, 26 September 2003 — The UN nuclear watchdog has found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at a second site in Iran, a month before a UN deadline for Tehran to prove it has no secret atomic weapons program, diplomats said yesterday.
One diplomat told Reuters the discovery could support Tehran’s explanation that the discovery of highly enriched uranium at a previous site in Iran was due to contamination from imported components.
But several other diplomats said it could support the US theory that Iran has been secretly purifying uranium for use in a nuclear explosive device — a charge Tehran denies. Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the diplomats said the new traces of enriched uranium were found in environmental samples taken during inspections at the Kalaye Electric Company on the southern outskirts of Tehran.
Earlier this year, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found traces of enriched uranium at a plant at Natanz, some 250 km (150 miles) south of the Iranian capital.
The IAEA finding at Natanz was a surprise, since Iran had insisted that its enrichment centrifuges were never tested live — that is, with nuclear material.
Tehran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, blames the earlier find at Natanz on machinery which it says was contaminated with enriched uranium when it was purchased abroad on the black market in the 1980s. This explanation has met with skepticism inside and outside the IAEA. However, one Western diplomat said failure to get a positive result from samples taken at Kalaye would have been surprising, as this is where Iran said it stored the centrifuge components which it says were contaminated.
