Iran Nuclear Progress Report

TEHRAN - Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Director Fereydoun Abbasi Davani has announced that Iran plans to install the first cascade of a new generation of centrifuges at the Fordo enrichment facility, located near Qom, in the near future.

“Currently we are working on the new generation of centrifuges, and the research work has been completed, and the first cascades of 164 centrifuges of this generation will be set up at both the Natanz and Fordo enrichment facilities soon,” Abbasi told reporters on Wednesday.

He also said that the AEOI plans to transfer the production of uranium enriched to a purity level of 20 percent from Natanz to the Fordo enrichment facility under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and to triple the production of 20 percent enriched uranium.

“We will respond to the agency by stepping up our efforts in the area of nuclear expertise and technology. For example, we will transfer the 20 percent enrichment to the Fordo nuclear site under the supervision of the agency and will triple our production during the current year,” he said, referring to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano’s statement on Monday, in which he said that Iran seems to have carried out nuclear-related activities with possible military links until recently.

“In fact, the Fordo nuclear site will be dedicated to the production of 20 percent enriched uranium,” he stated.

He went on to say that the 20 percent enrichment will not be halted at the Natanz enrichment facility until the Iranian experts make sure that the production of 20 percent enriched uranium has completely been transferred to Fordo and the level of production has increased threefold.

Speaking at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board meeting in Vienna, Washington's envoy Glyn Davies said the plan was Iran's "most recent brazen example of its deepening non-compliance."

Iran said it wanted to enrich uranium up to 20 percent for use in a 50-year old research reactor in Tehran. It told the IAEA on Wednesday it plans to triple its current enrichment capabilities, and will send some of the uranium to a previously secret site near Qom known as Fordo.

The Fordo enrichment plant will be fitted out with a new generation of Iranian-designed centrifuges, which IAEA analysts believe are more efficient that the 8,000 machines currently installed in Iran’s operational enrichment plant at Natanz.

According to a report released earlier this week from the Non-Proliferation Policy Education Center, Iran could produce its first bomb’s worth of nuclear fuel in just 62 days using the uranium from Natanz.

The analysis, written by nuclear weapons expert Greg Jones, says that the U.S. and Israel “have failed to prevent Iran from gaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons whenever Iran wishes to do so. It is time to recognize this policy failure and decide what to do next, based on a realistic assessment of Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts,” Jones wrote.

Jones concluded that it was “unclear what actions the U.S. or Israel could take (short of militarily occupying Iran) that could now prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons.”

The IAEA has evidence that Iran has conducted cold tests on the high explosive core of a proven nuclear weapons design and has carried out design work to fit the warhead to an existing missile.

In his statement to the IAEA board on Monday, IAEA Secretary General Yukiya Amano contradicted assertions by the U.S. intelligence community that Iran had ceased work on nuclear weapons in 2003.

“There are indications that certain of these activities may have continued until recently,” Amano said.