Iran close to obtaining uranium ore from Kazakhstan: report

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Iran close to obtaining uranium ore from Kazakhstan: report

Tehran appears to be running out of material needed to carry out uranium

enrichment

Jahn

Vienna, Austria — The Associated Press

Published on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009 7:20PM EST

Iran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified

uranium ore from Kazakhstan, according to an intelligence report obtained

Tuesday by The Associated Press. Diplomats said the assessment was heightening

international concern about Tehran's nuclear activities.

Such a deal would be significant because, according to an independent research

group, Tehran appears to be running out of the material, which it needs to feed

its uranium enrichment program.

The report was drawn up by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy

Agency and provided to the AP on condition that the country not be identified

because of the confidential nature of the information.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian said, " the transfer of any

uranium yellowcake ... to Iran would constitute a clear violation of UNSC

sanctions. "

" We have been engaged with many of our international nonproliferation partners

on Iran's illicit efforts to acquire new supplies of uranium over the past

several years, " he said.

A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was

talking about confidential information said Washington was aware of the

intelligence report, but he declined to discuss specifics.

" We are not going to discuss our private consultations with other governments on

such matters but, suffice to say, we have been engaged with Kazakhstan and many

of our other international nonproliferation partners on this subject in

particular over the past several years, " he told the AP. " We will continue to

have those discussions. "

In New York, Burkina Faso's UN Ambassador Michel Kafando, a co-chair of the

Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, referred questions Tuesday about a

potential deal between Iran and Kazakhstan to his sanctions adviser, Zongo

Saidou. Speaking in New York, Saidou told the AP that, as far as he knew, none

of the UN's member nations has alerted the committee about any such allegations.

" We don't have any official information yet regarding this kind of exchange

between the two countries, " Mr. Saidou said. " I don't have any information; I

don't have any proof. "

A senior UN official said the Vienna-based IAEA was aware of the assessment but

could not yet draw conclusions. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he

was discussing confidential information. A Western diplomat from a member of the

IAEA's 35-nation board said the report was causing concern among countries that

have seen it and was generating intelligence chatter. The diplomat also

requested anonymity because he was barred from publicly discussing intelligence

information.

A two-page summary of the report obtained by the AP said the deal could be

completed within weeks. It said Tehran was willing to pay $450-million (U.S.)

for the shipment.

" The price is high because of the secret nature of the deal and due to Iran's

commitment to keep secret the elements supplying the material, " said the

summary, adding: " The deal is to be signed soon. " An official of the country

that drew up the report said " elements " referred to state employees acting on

their own without approval of the Kazakh government.

After-hours calls to offices of Kazatomprom, the Kazakh state uranium company,

in Kazakhstan and Moscow, were not answered. Iranian nuclear officials also did

not answer their telephones.

Purified ore, or uranium oxide – known as " yellowcake " – is processed into a

uranium gas, which is then spun and re-spun to varying degrees of enrichment.

Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel, and upper-end high enriched

uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran is under three sets of Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze

its enrichment program and related activities that could be used to make nuclear

weapons. Tehran denies such aspirations, saying it wants to enrich only to fuel

an envisaged network of power reactors.

Any attempt to import such a large amount of uranium ore would be in violation

of those sanctions, which ban exports to the Islamic Republic of all items,

materials, equipment, goods and technology that could contribute to its

enrichment activities.

In addition, transfers of uranium ore in quantities greater than 500 kilograms

annually are subject to close scrutiny by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of

countries exporting atomic technology and materials.

Tehran still has hundreds of tons of uranium hexafluoride – the gas that is spun

by centrifuges into enriched uranium. But its stockpile of uranium oxide, from

which the gas is derived, is thought to be rapidly diminishing.

The IAEA believes that Iran's rapidly expanding enrichment program has been

built on 600 tons of uranium oxide imported from South Africa during the 1970s

as part of plans by the former regime to build a network of nuclear reactors.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said

earlier this year that, based on 2008 IAEA statistics, Iran had already used up

close to three-quarters of its South African supply.

In a November report, the IAEA noted that Iran had stopped producing uranium gas

from yellowcake in early August and said Iranian officials had notified the

agency that the production facility was down for maintenance.

Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security,

said Tuesday that the facility at the city of Isfahan had produced very little

for about a year.

" They said it was closed for maintenance but the reality is they probably ran

out of uranium, " he said.

Kazakhstan is among the world's three top producers of uranium, accounting for

more than 8,500 tons last year. Iran, in contrast is producing an estimated 20

tons a year – far too little to power even one large reactor let alone the

network it says it wants to put in place.

Experts say it has amassed enough low-enriched uranium to build at least two

nuclear warheads, should it choose to. Mr. Albright estimated that Tehran

theoretically could produce about 150 such weapons from 1,350 tons of

yellowcake, as specified in the intelligence report, but said that was not

necessarily why Iran wanted the material.

" They want to have a civilian nuclear program but on the other hand they want to

have nuclear weapons capability and they are willing to risk international

sanctions, " he said.

Tehran built its nuclear program on purchases from the black market, with its

present workhorse centrifuge based on the same basic model that it purchased

from the illicit nuclear network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan in the 1980s.

" Their modus operandi is smuggling and that continues, " said Mr. Albright,

alluding to numerous instances of Iranian attempts to import equipment banned by

the UN Security Council that have surfaced from the time its secret program was

discovered seven years ago to the present.

Adding to concerns, Iran has recently announced it plans 10 new enrichment

plants. It belatedly revealed that it had been working on a secret facility in

September, in an action Western officials describe as pre-emptive and driven by

fears it was about to be found out.

It is stonewalling IAEA attempts to follow up on intelligence alleging it

experimented with weapons programs. And while sending contradictory signals, it

refuses to formally accept an IAEA-brokered plan that would commit it to

exporting most of its enriched material for processing into reactor fuel in one

batch– a move that would strip it of the stockpile it would need to make a

weapon.