IAEA Concerns and U.S. Diplomacy

By Andrew St. Denis

Courtesy of ISIS and ACW, the IAEA last Thursday released its latest report on the Iranian nuclear program.

On February 8, Iran sent a letter to the IAEA, notifying them of the imminent transfer of low-enriched uranium into their Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Despite IAEA requests to the contrary, on February 9, Iran began feeding LEU into the cascade enriching to 20 percent in advance of the arrival of IAEA inspectors, something the IAEA was none too happy about. Since then, Iran has moved much of its LEU stock into the adjacent feed station. Point 12 under the report’s section on Natanz stands out in particular:

On 14 February 2010, Iran, in the presence of Agency inspectors, moved approximately 1950 kg of low enriched UF6 from FEP to the PFEP feed station. The Agency inspectors sealed the cylinder containing the material to the feed station. Iran provided the Agency with mass spectrometry results which indicate that enrichment levels of up to 19.8% U-235 were obtained at PFEP between 9 and 11 February 2010.

As to David Albright and Jacqueline Shire of ISIS note in their analysis of the report, this means that almost the entirety of Iran’s stock of LEU has been transferred to the PFEP. If the entire stock currently at PFEP is enriched to this level, it will yield approximately 200 kg of uranium enriched to the 19.75 percent necessary for the Tehran Research Reactor, enough to run it for anywhere from one to three and a half decades given that, “[p]revious ISIS reports note that if operated at its capacity of 5 MW-th per year, the TRR would require between 9.2 and 18.4 kg LEU annually, and if operated at lower output, as has been its history, would require between 5.5 to 11 kg of LEU per year.” The failed TRR deal would have supplied Iran with enough fuel to run the reactor from anywhere from 5 to 21 years depending on its operating level in exchange for 1200kg of its LEU stocks, according to one ISIS report. As Shire told Politico's Laura Rozen last week, the amount of LEU now in PFEP, “is way more than the [Tehran Research Reactor] needs and raises concerns about why Iran would be planning to convert so much.”

In addition, Iran has yet to demonstrate the ability to take its newly-enriched UF6 and convert it into the uranium oxide form necessary to power the TRR. However, Iran has created production line aimed at researching production of uranium metal, and is planning to create a line specifically aimed at doing so utilizing uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, such as that currently being produced at PFEP. As Joshua Pollack notes, “U metal — enriched to 80% or more — is the stuff of which bombs are made. Iran may not have the Bomb, but it has acquired a complete salami-slicing kit, and knows how to use it.”

On the Fordow enrichment facility, the report confirms that during its design information verification inspection last year, the facility was consistent with information received from member states. If it’s true that Iran began construction in 2006 as is alleged by these same sources, then it was in violation of its agreements and “bound by the modified Code 3.1 to have informed the Agency.”

This report represents a marked shift in tone from previous reports, and for the first time the IAEA has raised concerns over the possibility of current work on a weapons program rather than simply the possibility of past efforts:

The information available to the Agency in connection with these outstanding issues is extensive and has been collected from a variety of sources over time. It is also broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people and organizations involved. Altogether, this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile. These alleged activities consist of a number of projects and sub-projects, covering nuclear and missile related aspects, run by military related organizations.

The report also comes at an important time for the United States as it attempts to create consensus among the P5+1 on the use of sanctions. The joint U.S.-French-Russian letter to the IAEA last week, states their regret at Iran’s apparent rejection of the TRR deal in January and calls Iran’s current enrichment plans unjustified. Russia seems to be softening to the American position at this point, especially given it has again delayed shipment of S-300 air defense systems to Iran on ostensibly technical grounds.

China remains the most prominent holdout at this point, having rushed to decry sanctions and reaffirm its call for further negotiations following Ahmadinejad’s most recent statement in support of a modified TRR deal. Secretary of State Clinton recently warned China that it could face isolation and insecurity if it fails to back sanctions, and her recent trip to Saudi Arabia appears to have included an attempt to gain energy supply guarantees to persuade China to support their use. It’s too soon to know if she was successful and if such measures would prove a strong enough incentive. While the Saudi foreign minister’s carefully worded statements are ambiguous and may indicate that Saudi Arabia will not pressure China, BBC’s Kim Ghattas proposed that they may also signal that, “if China does not back UN sanctions, as was expected from a "responsible world power,"” a phrase used by the Saudi FM, “it risked upsetting its top oil supplier.”

Considering the strong wording of the IAEA's report and the U.S.'s diplomatic efforts, it will be interesting to see what next week's IAEA Board of Governors meeting holds in store.