Iran has again thumbed its nose the U.S. and other countries that want to halt its nuclear program with its latest defiant move: it has started the higher enrichment process:
Iran says it has begun enriching uranium to a higher level, defying international efforts to curb its nuclear activity.
Iranian state television quoted officials who said the process started Tuesday at Iran’s Natanz facility in the presence of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.
Iran told the IAEA Monday of its plans to enrich uranium to 20 percent in order to fuel a medical nuclear reactor.
Western powers are concerned that if Iran is able to enrich uranium to 20 percent, it could eventually produce weapons-grade uranium through the same process.
Iran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
The U.S. now wants a UN sanctions resolution on Iran within weeks:
The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to approve a resolution within weeks, not months, laying the ground for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke to leaders in Turkey, Italy and France about the “urgent need” to move forward on sanctions as soon as possible, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.
Asked how quickly sanctions could be in place, Morrell said Gates, who visited Paris this week, believed it could happen “in weeks, not months”.
In an interview with Fox News, a transcript of which was released on Tuesday, Gates said: “It is always a negotiating process and we’re just at the beginning of it.”
“I think it’s going to take some period of time; I would say weeks, not months, to see if we can’t get another U.N. Security Council resolution,” he added.
Asked what would happen if China or any other country opposed a resolution, Gates said: “All I can say is we have been successful in getting several security council resolutions so I’m optimistic we’ll be successful again.”
And Iran has its own response to unease among the U.S. and other nations:
The director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said Tuesday that the Islamic Republic would not need to enrich uranium to a higher level if the West were to provides the fuel it needs for the Tehran research reactor.
Iran started making higher-grade nuclear fuel on Tuesday, state television reported, a defiant move that may increase pressure for new international sanctions on the major oil producer.
“Whenever they provide the fuel, we will halt production of 20 percent,” Ali Akbar Salehi, who also serves as Iran’s vice president, told state TV.
A spokesman of the atomich agency, Ali Shirzadian, said Tuesday morning that “preparatory work” for enriching uranium to 20 percent had started at 9:30 A.M. local time and that production would formally get under way at about 1 P.M.
Today we started to make 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel … in the presence of IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors,” an unnamed official told Iran’s Arabic-language state television, al-Alam.
Reacting to the announcement, the United States said on Tuesday it wanted the United Nations Security Council to move quickly to enforce sanctions on Iran, demanding approval of a resolution “within weeks, not months.”
One sticking point for any resolution: China.
And it’s not surprising: China has now become Iran’s biggest trading partner.
Russia is not happy about Iran’s action, the Novosti News Agency reports:
Iran’s announcement that it is starting production of 20%-enriched uranium creates doubts about the peaceful nature of the country’s nuclear program Russia’s security chief Nikolai Patrushev said on Tuesday.
“Iran declares that it is not seeking nuclear weapons and is developing peaceful nuclear technologies. But its actions, including the recent announcement that it started to further enrich uranium to 20%, raise concerns among other states, and these doubts are reasonable,” the secretary of Russia’s Security Council said.
In an editorial, the New York Daily News says Congress needs to approve some legislation now pending that would give actual teeth to U.S. official proclamations about consequences for Iran:
Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have the diplomatic corps working overtime in hope of winning a United Nations Security Council agreement to put the screws to Iran. Good luck with that. China hardly seems to be in the mood.
The world has seen this bad movie before. Tehran is making a mosh pit of international diplomacy and mauling better-intentioned participants with impunity. It’s way past time the United States stopped worrying about the rules of the game and mauled back with everything America can muster.
Gasoline would be a handy chokepoint. Despite sitting on huge reserves of crude, Iran lacks refining capacity. Thus, it imports disproportionate quantities of fuel for its transportation needs.
The legislation pending in Congress would, in effect, bar companies from shipping gasoline to Iran or helping to expand the country’s oil-refining capability.
There would also be a broad bar on direct imports from and exports to Iran, exempting food and medicine. And the administration would be required to freeze the assets of Iranians who are active in weapons proliferation or terrorism.
The Security Council should long ago have approved this kind of action. Except it didn’t. Even as Iran was exposed for running secret atomic facilities. Even as Iran has moved inexorably closer to fulfilling its nuclear ambitions. It’s up to Congress to force the issue – now.
Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership has not exactly moved heath and earth to defuse concerns about its intentions. For instance, a top leader said Israel’s days are numbered.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday the destruction of Iran’s arch-foe Israel was “imminent,” and called for continued resistance against the Jewish state, state media reported.
“I am very optimistic about the future of Palestine and believe Israel is on the steep path of decline and deterioration,” Khamenei told Ramadan Abdullah, the secretary general of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
“God willing, its destruction will be imminent,” the Islamic republic’s all-powerful leader said. “Continued resistance and hope for victory should be taken into consideration.”
Iran does not recognise Israel, and is a staunch backer of Palestinian Islamist militants.
Tensions have soared between Iran and Israel over the past five years since hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power.
Still, according to Samuel Segev, writing in the Winnipeg Free Press, Iran’s latest action is being put into perspective in Israel:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that his country will begin enriching its stockpile of low-grade uranium to 20 per cent grade is not being taken very seriously in Israel.
Israeli scientists and scholars see the announcement as part of the gamesmanship that Ahmadinejad is playing with President Barack Obama and with other western leaders. They say this is not the first time that Ahmadinejad is making such a threat. It’s part of the bargaining in the Persian Bazaar at which Ahamdinejad has been such a good player.
“For Iran to produce 20 per cent enriched uranium would require a more advanced technology that Iran doesn’t possess,” said a former Israeli Mossad operative, who follows Iran’s nuclear development. “It would take Iran many more years to reach this capability.”
Indeed, a careful reading of Ahmadinejad’s instructions shows that Iran left the door open for more negotiations. “Iran would halt the enrichment process, if it receives the necessary fuel for its for its medical research facility from other sources,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organization.
Israeli officials revealed privately that in secret briefings in the last few months, CIA director Leon Panetta and Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, told their Israeli counterparts that Iran is encountering many technical difficulties at its nuclear plants. Iran is definitely behind its own schedules and timetable, they said. Hence, the U.S. would not deviate from its intention to enforce more economic sanctions against the Iranian regime.
Ahmadinejad’s announcement on Sunday should also be taken against the background of this week’s celebrations to commemorate Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi’s downfall 31 years ago.
In the last few weeks, Iran was announcing almost every week the “successful launching” of various types of missiles, the “test-flying” of Iranian-made planes and other achievements of its military industry. Ahmadinejad is keen to show off the achievements of his regime in the fields of science and technology.
Since the shah was forced into exile and the Peacock Throne was taken over by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic organizes festivities all over the country that culminate on Feb. 11, when the shah left the country. This year, however, is different. Since the controversial parliamentary elections seven months ago, Iran is still on the boil and a place to watch.
There’s a lot more so read it in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.