Iran acknowledged Thursday that it plans to process tonnes of raw uranium, but said the UN nuclear watchdog was informed long ago and accused Washington of sensationalizing the matter.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press that Iran plans to process more than 40 tons of uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas. Experts said the amount was enough for four or five warheads.
The UN report did not specify what plans Iran had for the material, which is spun in centrifuges to produce enriched uranium. This can then be used to generate electricity or make nuclear warheads, depending on the degree of enrichment.
Ali Akbar Salehi, a senior adviser to Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, said Thursday that Iran's plans were not a secret. "This is the information Iran provided to the IAEA a long time ago," he told the AP.
In response to what he called Iran's concerted effort to make nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that Washington would urge the UN nuclear agency at its board meeting this month to refer the Iranian case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Iran denies the allegation and insists its nuclear program is geared only toward producing electricity, not a nuclear bomb.
Salehi, Iran's former envoy to the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA, said extraction of uranium and converting uranium ore into hexafluoride gas was entirely legitimate and under the safeguards of the IAEA.
"Technically speaking, there is no way Iran's nuclear program will be diverted toward making bombs," Salehi said.
"To produce a bomb, you need vast facilities, including thousands of advanced centrifuges ... The equipment in Natanz can't do that, and IAEA cameras there watch the facility 24 hours a day," Salehi said.
However, David Albright, a former IAEA nuclear inspector, said "enrichment technology is easy to switch" to allow the manufacture of highly enriched, or weapons-grade uranium from centrifuges that are set up to make low-enriched uranium, used in nuclear fuel.
While Iran does not have the 1,500-2,000 operating centrifuges needed to make enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear bomb in a year, it is thought to have several hundred.
That would slow the process over years, but does not mean there are not enough centrifuges -- just that it would take a longer time to make highly enriched uranium suitable for a bomb, said Albright, who now heads the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
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