WORLD / Middle East
Iran says it joins nuclear club
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-12 14:25
TEHRAN - President Mahmo
WORLD / Middle East
IAEA head to probe Iran's nukes claims
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-13 09:02
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, expressed
optimism about his visit to Iran on arriving there for talks aimed at
defusing tension over Tehran's nuclear program.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
arrived in Tehran, Iran Wednesday, April 12, 2006 to begin talks about
Iran's nuclear enrichment program. [AP]
"The time is right for a political solution and the way is negotiations,"
the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told journalists at
Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran just after midnight Wednesday
local time.
ElBaradei's visit began not long after Tehran's announcement Tuesday that
the country had successfully enriched uranium, a key step to producing
peaceful nuclear energy or nuclear weapons.
"I would like to see Iran come to terms with the requests of the
international community," he said, explaining the purpose of his trip as
being "to clarify remaining outstanding issues on the nature of the
Iranian program."
Earlier Wednesday, the country's deputy nuclear chief said Iran intends
to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 54,000
centrifuges, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international
community has insisted it halt.
That will be hundreds of times more than what the country has now,
reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod. If true, Axelrod adds, that
would be enough to produce hundreds of nuclear warheads.
Iran's president had announced Tuesday that the country had succeeded in
enriching uranium on a small scale for the first time, using 164
centrifuges. The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all
enrichment activity because of suspicions the program's aim is to make
nuclear weapons.
"We will expand uranium enrichment to industrial scale at Natanz," Deputy
Nuclear Chief Mohammad Saeedi told state-run television Wednesday.
He said Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it
plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz by late 2006, then expand to
54,000 centrifuges, though he did not say when.
He said using 54,000 centrifuges will be able to produce enough enriched
uranium to provide fuel for a 1,000-megawat nuclear power plant like the
one Russia is currently putting the finishing touches on in southern Iran.
Iran's claims brought it fresh international condemnation as allies
Russia and China joined several European countries and the United States
in expressing their disapproval over the nuclear activities.
Already the U.N. Security Council had given it until April 28 to clear up
suspicions that it wants to become a nuclear power. It has asked Tehran
to suspend enrichment and allow unannounced IAEA inspections.
The White House is pressing for U.N. sanctions against Iran.
ElBaradei said he hoped the visit would ��bring Iran in line with the
requests of the international community to take confidence-building
measures regarding its activities including suspension of enrichment and
related activities until outstanding issues are clarified.''
A team of five IAEA inspectors arrived in Iran late last week.
On Thursday, ElBaradei is expected to meet Iran's nuclear chief Vice
President Gholamreza Aghazadeh.
"I don't know anyone on god's green earth that actually thinks that's
what the Iranians are interested in," Richard Haass, president of the
Council on Foreign Relations told CBS News' The Early Show co-anchor
Hannah Storm. "They don't need nuclear power for electricity because
they've got all this oil and gas. So this is a serious moment. But,
again, the world still has time for diplomacy to try to put a ceiling on
what they're doing," Haass said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced the enrichment success
Tuesday in a nationally televised ceremony, saying the country's nuclear
ambitions are peaceful and warning the West that trying to force Iran to
abandon enrichment would "cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of
Iranians."
The United States is not taking Iran's claim at face value, CBS News
senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports, and top officials
tell CBS News that they just can't be sure. But the announcement quickly
raised condemnations from the U.S., who said the claims "show that Iran
is moving in the wrong direction."
Denouncing Iran's successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the
international community, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
Wednesday the U.N. Security Council must consider "strong steps" to
induce Tehran to change course. She said "this latest announcement...will
further isolate Iran."
Rice also telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, to ask him to reinforce demands that Iran comply
with its nonproliferation requirements when he holds talks in Tehran on
Friday.
The U.S. remains convinced Iran wants to build a nuclear weapon.
"This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power," Rice
said while greeting President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Moasogo of Equatorial
Guinea. "This is a question of, ... the world does not believe that Iran
should have the capability and the technology that could lead to a
nuclear weapon."
Russia also criticized the announcement Wednesday, with Foreign Ministry
spokesman Mikhail Kamynin saying, "We believe that this step is wrong. It
runs counter to decisions of the IAEA and resolutions of the U.N.
Security Council."
Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful figure in the
country's clerical regime, warned that pressuring Iran over enrichment
"might not have good consequences for the area and the world."
If the West wants "to solve issues in good faith, that could be easily
possible, and if they want to ... pressure us on our nuclear activities,
things will become difficult and thorny for all," Rafsanjani said in an
interview with the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam, published on
Wednesday.
Rafsanjani, who heads Iran's Expediency Council, a powerful body that
arbitrates between the parliament and the clerical hierarchy, said
planned talks between Iran and the United States on stabilizing Iraq
could lead to discussions on the nuclear dispute.
"We don't have a mandate to discuss the nuclear issue with the Americans
... but if the talks on Iraq go in the right direction, there might be a
possibility for that issue," Rafsanjani said in an interview with the
Al-Hayat daily. "There have been many cases where big and wide-ranging
decisions had small beginnings."
Iranian and U.S. officials have insisted the talks will deal only with
Iraq. So far, no date for the talks has been set.
Enrichment is a key process that can produce either fuel for a reactor or
the material needed for a nuclear reactor. But thousands of centrifuges,
arranged in a network called a "cascade," are needed for either purpose,
and getting any number of centrifuges to work together is a very delicate
and difficult task.
Top World News
� Cuba TV shows Castro meeting with Chavez
� Specter: Bush not sole 'decision-maker'
� US senators warn against war with Iran
� 6-party nuclear talks to resume Feb 8
� Bush warns Iran against action in Iraq
Today's Top News
� US seeks to engage with, not confront China
� Farmers' protests drop 20% last year
� CNOOC predicts flat oil output
� Castro: Recovery battle 'far from lost'
� Strategic oil reserve begins operation in China
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
Learn Chinese, Chinese Mandarin, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing, Travel to Tibet
ud Ahmadinejad says Iran wants to achieve
industrial-scale uranium enrichment, setting his country on a collision
course with the United States which fears Tehran wants to make an atomic
bomb.
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said Iran had successfully produced the enriched
uranium needed to make nuclear fuel for the first time, triggering a
warning from Washington that Tehran's latest declared nuclear advance
could heighten international pressure.
Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks in Mashhad, Iran's
holiest city Tuesday, April 11, 2006. [AP]
Ahmadinejad said in a televised address: "I am officially announcing that
Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear
technology. This is the result of the Iranian nation's resistance."
"Based on international regulations, we will continue our path until we
achieve production of industrial-scale enrichment," he told officials and
some ambassadors from regional states gathered in the northeastern city
of Mashhad.
The United Nations has said Iran must halt uranium enrichment, a process
Western nations fear Tehran wants to master so that it can develop
nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its aims are entirely peaceful.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that Iran's announcement could
force further talks among the U.N. Security Council powers.
"If Iran continues to move in the direction that it is currently, then we
will be talking about the way forward with the other members of the
Security Council and Germany about how to address this going forward," he
said.
The U.S. State Department said it was unable to confirm Iran's
announcement, and some experts said that even if Tehran's assertions were
accurate, it would still be years before the Islamic state was able to
produce a nuclear weapon.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the announcement gave
"more weight to the international community to act in a concerted
fashion", but some experts said it was unclear if Russia and China,
veto-wielding members of the Security Council, would be willing to back
sanctions.
DIALOGUE
China, which traditionally opposes slapping Iran with sanctions, urged a
diplomatic solution.
"We still believe that negotiations and a diplomatic solution are the
best way out of it," Wang Guangya, China's envoy to the United Nations,
said in New York on Tuesday in comments carried by the official Xinhua
news agency.
It was not immediately clear if Wang, who is also the current president
of the Security Council, was speaking in direct reaction to Iran's
announcement.
The Security Council has demanded Iran shelve enrichment activity, and on
March 29 it asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to report on its
compliance in 30 days.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran later this week to
seek full Iranian cooperation with the Council and IAEA inquiries. The
announcement of advances in enrichment work casts an embarrassing cloud
over that trip.
The IAEA had no immediate comment.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, has one nuclear power
plant under construction but has plans for more. It says it needs to make
its own nuclear fuel to secure supply and has rejected U.N. demands to
stop enrichment.
The high-profile announcement about Iran's nuclear achievements at a time
when tensions with the West are already high, puzzled some analysts. But
they said it could be grandstanding ahead of a possible softer approach
to follow.
"They can say, 'we reached our rights, we reached our goals and it is not
necessary to continue any more because we are able to do the job.' This
is my guess," political analyst Saeed Laylaz said.
A Western diplomat said it was possible Iran was "putting on this drama
to step back", but said this was still speculation. "It's totally the
wrong signal," the diplomat added.
Reflecting anxiety about the nuclear dispute, investors shifted into the
safe-haven Swiss franc after Iran's announcement, traders said. The
nuclear dispute has also been a factor helping to push up oil prices to
record levels.
The level of enrichment needed to trigger the nuclear chain reaction that
detonates bombs is far higher than the 3.5 percent Iran says it has
reached.
It would take Iran years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for
one bomb with its current cascade of 164 centrifuges. But Iran has told
the IAEA it will start installing 3,000 centrifuges later this year,
enough to produce material for a warhead in a year.
Related Stories
� Iran has got enriched uranium
===========================================================================
� Iran: Enrichment goal is peaceful
===========================================================================
� Iran in nuclear technology step
===========================================================================
� US aims to dampen talk of striking Iran
===========================================================================
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
Today's Top News
� Bush thanks Wu Yi for making 'equitable trade'
� Mystery of 121 human skulls cleared
� Environmental protection goals not met
� Jury transfixed by tape of 9/11 plane
� Penalties on shoes a lose-lose decision
Top World News
� Iran vows to ramp up uranium enrichment
� Report raises new questions on Bush, WMDs
� Al-Qaida figure backs Iraqi insurgents
� Karachi bomb death toll hits 57
� Prodi vows new govt amid election row
