VIENNA, 19 April 2007 — Iran has assembled some 1,300 centrifuges at a key underground nuclear plant and has started to feed them with the uranium gas necessary for enriching uranium, the UN atomic watchdog said yesterday. Iran has eight cascades of 164 centrifuges each at a heavily bunkered underground facility in Natanz and “some UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) is being fed,” a diplomat said.
The diplomat was quoting to AFP a confidential document the International Atomic Energy Agency sent yesterday to the 35 member states of its board of governors. The IAEA had agreed to “a combination of unannounced inspections and containment and surveillance measures,” the diplomat said, adding that the IAEA had backed off from its insistence that cameras had to be installed to monitor the centrifuges.
Earlier, diplomats told AFP that the IAEA still had adequate access in verifying Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons, even without the surveillance cameras. Putting in the cameras was a key demand but a deal struck with Iran gives IAEA inspectors the right to make unannounced on-site inspections at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, the diplomats said.
Iran earlier in the day warned that its armed forces would “cut off the hand” of an enemy and Tehran would consider using oil as a weapon if the Islamic republic was attacked over its nuclear program. “Our army has a defensive mission and not an offensive one. But it is completely ready to confront any aggressor and cut off their hand,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a military parade to mark army day on the outskirts of Tehran.
Iran’s oil minister refused to rule out using oil as a weapon in the standoff with the West over its nuclear program, saying that Tehran would use every means if attacked.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s policy is to supply energy as a responsibility. We are never seeking to cut the energy supplies to the world,” Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh told an energy conference in Tehran.
