Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said on November 16 that the launch of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr would not take place this year as planned due to "technical reasons." At the same time, the minister said that major results are expected in the construction of the $1 billion plant by the end of the year.
Nuclear fuel deliveries for Bushehr were completed in January. The launch was expected by the end of 2009. But it has already been delayed several times for technical and financial reasons. When Russia began construction (actually taking over construction from companies in Germany and elsewhere) in 1995, they expected a 2002 start up. That was delayed several times. The Regime in Iran announced that it would start in 2007, then announced it would start in 2008, then guaranteed it would start in 2009 - given that much of the plant is 1970s construction and 1960s design, these delays are pretty understandable.
Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday.
The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report "underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations."
The IAEA report offered no estimate of Fordo's capabilities, but a senior international official familiar with the U.N. agency's work in Iran said it appeared designed to produce about a ton of enriched uranium a year.
The official, as well as analysts, said that would be enough for a nuclear warhead but too little for Iran's civilian reactors that have yet to come online, including the still unfinished plant at the southern port of Bushehr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information he was citing was confidential.
"It won't (even) be able to produce a reactor's worth of fuel every 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientists. "It does look strange."
The IAEA also said production at Iran's main enrichment site at Natanz -- revealed by dissidents in 2002 and under IAEA monitoring -- was stagnating at mid-2009 levels.
The report did not offer a reason. But the official suggested that experts who used to work at Natanz could be preoccupied with finishing the Fordo site.
As early as three years ago, Iran had said immediate plans for Natanz were to install about 8,000 enriching centrifuges, and Monday's report suggested Tehran had reached that goal.
The IAEA summary said that as of Nov. 2, about 8,600 centrifuges had been set up, but only about 4,000 were enriching -- or 600 fewer than in September. Still, the official said output had been steady since June with about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of enriched uranium being produced a month.
The report said Natanz had churned out nearly 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of uranium by Nov. 2 -- close to what experts consider to be needed for two nuclear weapons. But for use as warhead material it would have to enriched further -- it is now low-enriched uranium suitable only for fueling nuclear plants.
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Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2009 07:34 ||
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But the bureaucrats that assembled the NIE said this didn't exist. How could that be? /sarc off
The government has been having problems getting uranium back from Syria. Iran provided Syrian with the radioactive material several years ago, but Israel discovered Syria's nuclear program, and bombed the research facility in 2007. Syria refuses to return the uranium, and Iran and North Korea are threatening to cease assistance to Syria's chemical weapons program until Syria gives in.
In the last year, at least half a dozen Iranian ships, carrying weapons to Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemeni Shia rebels, have been sunk or captured. Iran denies any involvement, and dismisses all this evidence as just another Western plot to discredit the religious leadership of Iran. At the same time, the Iranians have to be wondering how the Westerners are getting information on all these arms shipments. Someone is talking.
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Posted by: ed ||
11/17/2009 06:24 ||
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ION ISRAELI MIL FORUM > DEBKA > IAEA: SITE NEAR QOM [Fordo, Qom] MUST BE A MILITARY ENRICHMENT FACILITY; + IRAN DIGS HUNDREDS OF MISSLE SILOS - SOME FOR DIVERSION [Covert, Satellite Recce = fully Mil-protected FAKE SILOS].
* SAME > IAEA WANTS TO INSPECT THREE SECRET SYRIAN NUCLEAR SITES.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the "enemies" of his country's nuclear programme had been defeated ahead of the release of the latest UN report on the atomic drive. It seems so. With a little help from a friend.
International attention focused on the report as US President Barack Obama said "time is running out" for Iran to respond to a UN plan aiming to ease international fears that the Islamic Republic is working on a nuclear bomb.
Russia, meanwhile, announced that a controversial nuclear power plant it is building in Iran will not start operations by the end of 2009 as previously announced.
Ahmadinejad said the West would have to come to terms with Iran's nuclear progress, Iran's state broadcaster quoted the president as saying on his website.
"Enemies have politicised the nuclear issue using all of their abilities to try to make the Iranian nation surrender, but they have been defeated," Ahmadinejad said.
Nuclear cooperation with Iran is "beneficial to the Westerners because their opposition to it will make Iran stronger and more advanced," he added insisting that Iran's nuclear rights are "non-negotiable" and the research was being pursued "entirely under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision."
The IAEA sent its new report, having stated several times that Iran is not cooperating with UN Security Council demands, backed by three rounds of sanctions, that it halt uranium enrichment.
The new report will also give details of an October visit to an atomic site at Qom, that Iran had until recently kept secret.
Obama on Sunday won the strongest backing yet from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev over international frustration at Iran's failure to answer an offer to enrich uranium outside of Iran. You forgot to include China, Noobama.
"Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran has been unable to say yes" to the proposal, Obama said after talks with Medvedev in Singapore. "We now are running out of time with respect to that approach."
Russia, which has the strongest ties with Tehran of any big power, has traditionally been unwilling to punish Iran with tough measures. But Medvedev said that Tehran risked sanctions if the crisis continued.
He said Moscow was "not completely happy about the pace" of efforts to resolve the crisis.
"In case we fail, the other options remain on the table, in order to move the process in a different direction," he said in a reference to new UN sanctions against Tehran.
Russia's Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said that the Bushehr nuclear plant would not now be ready this year, Russian news agencies reported. Shmatko insisted the delay was technical and the project would still go forward.
Russia, like the United States, is a veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member, and its support is crucial if US warnings of tough sanctions are to carry weight.
Obama described as "fair" the proposal offered to Iran, which would see Russia lead an international consortium helping Tehran to further enrich uranium for a research reactor.
Referring to sanctions, he said that "we will begin to discuss and prepare for these other pathways" as Tehran could not be counted on to fulfil its international obligations.
The West suspects Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear energy programme. Iran vehemently denies the claims while Russia has said there is no evidence to support the accusations.
IAEA Secretary General Mohamed ElBaradei, whose mandate finishes this month, is to chair his last board of governor's meeting on November 26, during which the new report will be discussed.
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An Iranian former deputy defence minister who has been missing for nearly three years was abducted by Israeli agents and was now being held in Israel, several Iranian news websites reported yesterday.
Ali Reza Asgari, a retired general who served in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, disappeared while on a private trip to Turkey in December, 2006. In March of this year, a former German Defence Ministry official said Mr Asgari had defected and was providing information to the West on Iran's nuclear program. Iranian officials and Mr Asgari's family have claimed that he was abducted.
One of yesterday's web reports, on a site called Alef, said German and British intelligence services assisted Israeli agents in abducting Mr Asgari and taking him to Israel. The site, www.alef.ir, is close to a conservative Iranian law-maker.
"On the basis of a two-year investigation carried out by concerned bodies, Asgari was abducted by foreign intelligence services and is being held in a Zionist prison," the site reported, apparently referring to an Iranian intelligence probe into the matter.
"Asgari was abducted with the co-operation of Mossad as well as German and British intelligence services and was finally taken to Israel," the news report said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry refused to comment.
Hans Ruehle, a former chief of the planning staff of the German Defence Ministry, wrote in a Swiss newspaper in March that Mr Asgari told the West that Iran was financing North Korean steps to transform Syria into a nuclear weapons power, leading to an Israeli air-strike that targeted a site in Syria on September 6, 2007.
The US claims the site was a nearly finished nuclear reactor, but Syria denies that and says the facility was an unused military installation. Mr Ruehle said Mr Asgari, who was instrumental in establishing the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, "changed sides" and provided information to the West on Iran's own nuclear program.
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Posted by: Fred ||
11/17/2009 00:00 ||
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better than admitting he bailed on the regime and is singing like a canary, I guess
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/17/2009 9:02 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the "enemies" of his country's nuclear programme had been defeated ahead of the release of the latest UN report on the atomic drive.
