Nuke monitor says Iran has defied UN order, harsher sanctions likely

Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment programme instead of complying with a UN Security Council ultimatum to freeze it, the UN nuclear watchdog said

Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment programme instead of complying with a UN Security Council ultimatum to freeze it, the UN nuclear watchdog said today. The finding clears the path for harsher Security Council sanctions against Tehran.

“Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities,” said the International Atomic Energy Agency. In its report, the IAEA detailed recent activities showing Tehran expanding its enrichment efforts — setting up hundreds of uranium-spinning centrifuges in an underground hall and bringing nearly 9 tonnes of the gaseous feedstock into the facility in preparation for enrichment. Iranian officials, the report said, had informed the agency that they would expand their centrifuge installations to have thousands of them ready by May.

The conclusion — while widely expected — was important because it could serve as the trigger for the council to start deliberating on new sanctions meant to punish Tehran for its nuclear intransigence.

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In the report, written by IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, the agency also said that Iran continues building both a reactor that will use heavy water and a heavy water production plant — also in defiance of the Security Council.

Both enriched uranium and plutonium produced by heavy water reactors can produce the fissile material used in nuclear warheads. Iran denies such intentions, saying it needs the heavy water reactor to produce radioactive isotopes for medical and other peaceful purposes and enrichment to generate energy.

The six-page report also said that agency experts remain “unable… to make further progress in its efforts to verify fully the past development of Iran’s nuclear program” due to lack of Iranian cooperation. That, too, put it in violation of the Security Council, which on December 23 told Tehran to “provide such access and cooperation as the agency requests to be able to verify… all outstanding issues” within 60 days.

The report, sent both to the Security Council and the agency’s 35 board member nations, set the stage for a fresh showdown between Iran and Western powers. Even before it was issued, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that the US and its allies would use the UNSC and other “available channels” to bring Tehran back to negotiations.

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned… that the Iranian government did not meet the (Wednesday) deadline.