The report is in line with international assessments that
Iran's domestic supplies cannot sustain its nuclear program that could be
turned toward making weapons.
An intelligence report from a member country of the
International Atomic Energy Agency — shared with the AP by an official from
that nation — says Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met secretly last
month with senior Zimbabwean mining officials “to resume negotiations ... for
the benefit of Iran's uranium procurement plan.” “This follows work carried out
by Iranian engineers to map out uranium deposits in Africa and assess the
amount of uranium they contain,” said the two-page intelligence summary.
The report — confirmed independently by an official from
another IAEA country — was shared as an Iranian delegation led by the head of
the Cooperative Ministry Abbas Johari was meeting Thursday with “agriculture
and mining interests” in the Zimbabwean capital Harare.
The official confirming the intelligence described the
Salehi visit as part of an international Iranian effort that stretches across
Africa, Asia and South America and may involve more than a dozen countries.
Both officials — whose countries closely follow Iran's nuclear program — asked
for anonymity in exchange for discussing intelligence matters.
The assessments are important because they call into
question recent Iranian assertions meant to dispel doubts about the country's
capability to sustain and expand its uranium enrichment program.
Iran says it is enriching solely to power a future network
of nuclear reactors. But it has been targeted by UN sanctions because
enrichment can also create fissile warhead material — and because of its
nuclear secrecy and refusal to cooperate with IAEA probes into its activities.
The assessments come days ahead of the latest IAEA report on
Iran, which has been under nearly a decade of international nuclear perusal
over concerns it might seek to develop nuclear arms.
Diplomats said Thursday that report may contain an index
listing experiments the agency suspects Iran conducted as part of work on a
nuclear weapons program. The alleged experiments have been known for years, but
republication would show the agency's impatience with Iran's prolonged refusal
to cooperate with its investigation.
Tehran still has hundreds of tons of uranium hexafluoride -
the gas derived from ore that is spun by centrifuges into the enriched uranium
that can be used as reactor fuel and to arm nuclear missiles. But both Western
intelligence agencies and IAEA officials say that it does not seem to have
meaningful domestic supplies of the ore itself. That means that Iran's
enrichment efforts would ultimately have to be curtailed unless new domestic or
foreign supplies are secured.
Tehran denies any shortages. Because UN sanctions ban countries
from selling Iran any nuclear material, it is publicly focusing on searching
and exploiting possible domestic supplies at its only operating mine near
Bandar Abbas and at a site at Saghand, both in southern Iran.
Salehi in December said it had started uranium ore
processing for the first time from domestic production instead of using
supplies it imported decades ago.
Still — despite asserting it has plentiful ore reserves at
Saghand — there have been no attempts to exploit the site, because of what officials
say is a lack of money.
“Iran's known uranium ore reserves are limited and mostly of
poor quality making them commercially unprofitable to mine,” says former United
States Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation Mark Fitzpatrick.
With the completion date of any Iranian nuclear reactor
network decades away, Tehran may have other pressing reasons to look for
replenishable ore supplies, said Fitzpatrick, now head of nonproliferation for
the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Iran, he said, now has enough uranium gas to make 20 or 30
nuclear weapons, should it choose to turn what it says is a peaceful program
into making such arms. If that supply were destroyed by a military attack or
sabotage, “that could put a serious crimp into Iran's ability to reconstitute
the program.” “That's why for strategic reasons its not surprising that Iran is
continuing to try to acquire additional sources,” he added.
Many of the world's uranium producers - or countries with
large reserves - are in Africa. And while some, like South Africa, observe UN
sanctions slapped on Iran in efforts to crimp its enrichment programs, there
are doubts about more reclusive countries.
The intelligence summary said “part of Iran's plan is to
gain a foothold in Zimbabwe and other African countries such as Congo, Nigeria
(and) Senegal.” The official who provided the summary said Salehi also visited
Senegal in mid-January, apparently to patch up tensions created by allegations
that Iran was supporting Senegalese separatists with weapons.
Other officials familiar with Iran-Zimbabwe relations said
that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others had expressed interest in
Zimbabwe's uranium supplies several times since April, when Ahmadinejad visited
Harare. But they said that action has been stalled by the problem of how to
exploit the reserves.
Because the uranium ore is not near existing mining
operations, large-scale extraction would draw international attention because
it could not be covered up as expansion of existing platinum or other mining
projects, they said, also asking for anonymity because their information was
privileged.
Large uranium deposits were first found decades ago in the
Kanyemba district nearly 250 km north of the capital, Harare, but were left
unmined because of low prices. The site has an estimated 450,000 tons of
uranium ore that would produce 20,000 tons of enrichable uranium.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe denied news reports after
Ahmadinejad's April visit that the Iranians had secured mining rights for his
country's uranium but his office said Iran had a right to apply for them.
US officials would not specifically confirm the Zimbabwe
connection but did not refute it in comments warning against violating UN
Security Council resolutions on Iran.
“We know Iran is looking for countries that might be
prepared to violate the UNSC resolution to address its uranium shortage,” said US
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. “We urge all countries to
abide by their international commitments.”
