What is the significance of Iran’s decision to break the seals at the Natanz plant?
The International Atomic Energy Agency placed seals at Iran’s Natanz plant to ensure that no research work would be carried out at the facility, which is the only known facility in Iran capable of carrying out nuclear enrichment.
Iran’s decision to break the seals was the last straw for the UK, France and Germany - known as the EU3 - and their efforts to persuade Iran to keep its nuclear research programme on hold. It followed Iran’s decision in August to resume uranium conversion at its facility in Isfahan - a move the EU had warned would end negotiations linked to trade and economic issues - and prompted the EU3 to declare that their talks with Iran had reached a “dead end“. They are now seeking an emergency meeting of the IAEA to discuss referring Iran to the UN security council - a move that could lead to the imposition of sanctions.
What is conversion?
Uranium ore needs to undergo a number of processes before it is suitable for use in a nuclear reactor. In the first, known as recovery, uranium ore is dissolved in sulphuric acid to produce uranium oxide. In the second, known as conversion, uranium oxide is converted into uranium hexafluoride. During the conversion process, impurities are removed and the uranium is combined with fluorine to create the gas, which is then pressurised and cooled to a liquid. In its liquid state it is drained into cylinders where it solidifies after cooling for approximately five days. UF6 is the only uranium compound that exists as a gas at a suitable temperature for enrichment operations.
What does uranium enrichment involve?
Natural uranium consists of heavy-weight atoms, middle-weight atoms, and light-weight atoms. These are the different isotopes of uranium. All uranium contains 92 protons in the atom’s centre. The heavy-weight atoms contain 146 neutrons, the middle-weight contain 143 neutrons, and the light-weight have just 142 neutrons. When refering to these isotopes, scientists add the number of protons and neutrons and put the total after the name - making uranium 238, uranium 235 and uranium 234 - atomic weight. Enriching uranium increases the amount of middle-weight and light-weight uranium atoms. Uranium 235 is the key ingredient that starts a nuclear reaction and keeps it going. To fuel a nuclear reactor, the uranium 235 must be enriched from 0.7 per cent of the uranium mass to about 5 per cent. For a weapon, it must be enriched to 90 per cent plus. There are two commonly used methods of enriching uranium - gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuges. Iran’s nuclear programme uses the latter.
What are centrifuges?
The gas centrifuge uranium enrichment process uses a large number of rotating cylinders. These machines use centrifugal force to separate substances of different densities. In this case the gas, uranium hexafluoride, is spun inside the centrifuge to separate the uranium 235 from the rest These centrifuge machines, are interconnected to form cascades.
What is a cascade?
The gas must pass through hundreds or thousands of such centrifuges, an arrangement called a cascade, before it is enriched in sufficient quantities for reactors or, in its most concentrated form, bombs.
How far has Iran gone in terms of its research towards making a nuclear bomb?
Experts regard the ability to manufacture highly enriched uranium as the most important factor in determining whether a country is capable of making a nuclear bomb.
When the Iranians shut down their pilot plant in Nantaz in 2004, it had only 164 centrifuges running, and some of them crashed. Experts say a cascade of 2,000 centrifuges is needed to produce sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium for a reactor or a bomb.
It is a hugely significant issue whether Iran takes the next step to a full-blown resumption of uranium enrichment and gets all of the 1,200 centrifuges it has assembled working, while assembling others.
According to an estimate by London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies, it could take about five years for Iran to assemble a nuclear weapon. But if only the pilot plant was active, it could be more like 30 to 40 years.
Has Iran ever received weapons designs?
Iran showed the International Atomic Energy Agency a document that diplomats consider to be highly incriminating - a design given to Iran by Pakistan’s AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network in the 1980s, which appears to show how to cast enriched uranium into hemispheres. This is a process whose chief use is engineering a nuclear explosion.
Is there evidence that Iran wants a bomb?
IAEA inspectors found traces of weapons-grade uranium at several sites in Iran, but the agency said that this it could have entered Iran on equipment imported from Pakistan. Others, notably American officials, argue that AQ Khan’s involvement and Iran’s alleged interest in missile designs is powerful proof that Tehran wants to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran is internationally isolated, with the US army on two of its borders, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, Israel, its sworn enemy, has long been a nuclear state. Some diplomats argue that Tehran wants to be within reach of nuclear capacity as part of its strategic defence, with all the infrastructure needed to develop nuclear weapons, but without necessarily having the bomb itself.
What does Iran say?
For Iran, the right to acquire nuclear technology is a matter of national pride, as indicated by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, who said recently that Iran would never give up its right to peaceful nuclear technology, aquired by “the talented youth of the country”.
Iran has always claimed its aims are purely peaceful and that it is merely seeking to safeguard its energy security.
What is the Paris agreement?
After concerns were first raised in 2002 by the Iranian opposition about Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities, Iran was persuaded by Britain, France and Germany - known as the EU3 - to suspend nuclear enrichment activities on a voluntary basis and to allow unfettered access to its nuclear facilities to representatives of the IAEA. In return the EU3 agreed to press for Iran’s nuclear dossier to be closed at the next IAEA board of governors meeting in June 2004 and also to supply Iran with advanced nuclear technology.
However, because of Iranian violations, the meeting ended up with the IAEA condemning Iran for its failure to fully comply with the agency’s inspectors. In response, Iran resumed its uranium-enrichment activity.
The next IAEA Board of Governors meeting, in September 2004, concluded that if Iran did not halt all enrichment activity by the date of the next meeting in November, its nuclear dossier would be transferred to the UN Security Council.
Intensive negotiations in the weeks prior to the IAEA meeting resulted on November 14 2004 with the Paris Agreement. Under the agreement, Iran agreed to a temporary and voluntary suspension of its nuclear activities as long as talks with the EU3 continued. The EU3 meanwhile promised Iran a package of benefits - including EU support for Iran’s membership of the WTO, access to nuclear technology and nuclear fuel, and economic aid. The threat of Iran’s nuclear dossier being transferred to the UN Security Council was then dropped at the IAEA meeting on November 25.
Less than a year later, however, in September 2005, the IAEA declared Iran to be in non-compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and Iran responded by threatening to end its “voluntary and temporary” agreements over its nuclear programme. The EU and US stepped back from pressing the IAEA to refer Tehran to the UN Security Council, however, and in November the EU agreed to an Iranian request for renewed talks.
What position is the IAEA taking?
Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director general, had hoped that a temporary de facto suspension of Iran’s nuclear activities might grow into a more permanent entente between the various sides.
But after two years of trying to facilitate talks between Iran and the EU3, he has publicly said that his patience is running out. Mr ElBaradei’s next report on Iran on March 6, which will be the basis for the IAEA discussions, is likely to break with his previous efforts, which have taken pains to be even-handed.
Instead, he is set to report that he has made “no progress” in persuading Iran to allow access to suspect sites or to hand over documents that could cast light on whether Tehran has sought to develop nuclear weapons.
