Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced during a visit to the Natanz enrichment facility on Monday that the Islamic Republic was now capable of uranium enrichment on an "industrial scale," in direct contravention of UN resolutions.
However, serious doubts have arisen concerning the enrichment claim, and Iran's ability to pay for atomic facilities currently under construction, shedding a new light on the capacity and future potential of the Iranian nuclear program.
Referring to a recently extended UN sanctions package, Institute for National Security Studies disarmament expert Dr Emily Landau told ISN Security Watch: "What we need to take from this announcement is [that it is] just a further indication after the second round of sanctions that the whole issue of continuing the program as it is - enriching uranium - is still very much on the agenda. Iran has no intention of complying with the latest UN resolution.
Regarding the announcement itself, she said, "I don't think that it is really [indicative] of Iran being at that point of no return or a technical threshold where it can go it alone and start industrial-scale production."
Asked if the Iranian announcement signaled a major developmental step, International Institute for Strategic Studies non-proliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick told ISN Security Watch: "No, It was a political announcement, devoid of any supporting evidence. Iran is not at the industrial-scale of enrichment, and will not be for some time."
Asked to explain the diplomatic implications of Monday's announcement, he said, "It showed that Iran has no intention of honoring the UN mandate that it suspend all enrichment-related activity."
Limiting cooperation
Both Iran and the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have made moves to limit their mutual cooperation under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Islamic Republic's ancillary NPT safeguards agreement.
The moves come amid accusations that Iran has not fully disclosed its nuclear work - including 18 years of uranium enrichment activities.
Two IAEA inspectors arrived in Iran on Tuesday. During their week-long stay the pair will investigate ongoing uranium reprocessing work at the Natanz enrichment facility. Their conclusions will heavily influence the next IAEA report to the UN Security Council on Iranian NPT compliance, to be delivered following the nuclear watchdog's board meeting in late May.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reports that IAEA spokesperson Melissa Fleming told German radio station Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday that Iran would have the capacity to create a nuclear weapon in four to six years and had received related materials illegally in the past while engaging in illicit nuclear experiments.
Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Monday warned that Iran would be forced to review its NPT membership if it faced further international pressure over its nuclear program.
Asked if Iran would leave the NPT, Fitzpatrick said, "No. Threatening to do so is a bluff. Withdrawing from the NPT would be equivalent to saying that their intentions are not peaceful, and that the nuclear program is for weapons purposes."
ISN Security Watch spoke to an official source with an intimate knowledge of the IAEA-Iran relationshipon the condition of anonymity.
Asked if the IAEA's problems with Iran stemmed largely from the failure to provide historical data on the development of its nuclear program, the source said: "It would not be incorrect when you say that the majority of issues are actually historical."
The IAEA does "not have a full picture of the past and therefore building up future work on a past which is not that clear is not comfortable for a number of [IAEA] member states."
"There were outstanding issues," he noted, "plutonium experiments they have done in the past, sources of the P-1 centrifuges, P-2 centrifuges, [used in enrichment] etc. These have not really come to the limelight yet and this is probably one of the problems."
Sanctions bite
"I have a sense that the sanctions route is a little more effective than the diplomacy that was carried out by the EU-3 [Britain, Germany and France] from 2003 to 2005," Landau said. "Iran still is not at the place where the international community wants it to be but there are signs of pressure."
The UN Security Council voted on 26 March to expand sanctions on Iran imposed over 14 alleged breaches of its NPT commitments, including an embargo on arms exports and the freezing of financial assets of a further group of prominent Iranian figures - including Revolutionary Guards commanders.
"After the first round of sanctions there were all these voices of criticism [in Iran] that came out aimed at Ahmadinejad, and even criticism from Khamenei, the supreme leader […] calling for a more moderate team to deal with the nuclear issue," Landau said.
"I think that the significance of the criticism is not that there is a desire to take necessarily a different route in the nuclear realm," she said. "They still want to go forward with the program, but it does mean that they are not happy with so many states in the international community being in agreement on taking this kind of resolution."
Landau believes that the Iranian economy "may be starting to feel the pressure" of US threats to cut banks off from the US financial system for doing business with companies that are found to have involvement with weapons of mass destruction programs or militant groups.
"Even the hint that banks might be subject to these kinds of penalties are enough for them to cut off ties with Iranian companies. So I think that these are steps that are starting to have an effect on Iran. But again, they are obviously not at a point that they will stop uranium enrichment."
Strained ties
Arguably, the most important diplomatic shift in recent months has been Russia's seeming decision to support a gradual move towards full UN sanctions.
"Having joined three Security Council resolutions mandating a suspension in Iran's enrichment program, Russia is committed to this goal and frustrated at Iran's continued defiance," Fitzpatrick said.
Russia and China had been seen as a bulwark in the UN Security Council against the US sanctions drive, but have eased their opposition to limited sanctions in the absence of Iranian diplomatic engagement.
Problems have also arisen over the completion and supply of the Russian-built Bushehr reactor, which was expected to be fully operational last September but has been dogged by delays, Iranian intimations of poor workmanship, and a growing crisis over payment scheduling.
According to the website of Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Rosatom, the country's general contractor working on the Bushehr plant, Atomstroyexport, has not been paid for over two months. Iran vehemently denies this.
Ongoing talks in Moscow and Tehran have failed to solve the crisis, and Russia will now withhold project work and nuclear fuel deliveries, the agency says.
Importantly, the first vice chairman of the State Duma Security Committee, Mikhail Grishankov, specifically linked the withholding of initial fuel shipments to Russian fears that the fuel could be used for unsanctioned purposes, describing the payments crisis as a challenge to all bilateral agreements and partner relations between the states.
"It is very hard to know with this whole issue with Bushehr […] whether the explanation really is that they haven't transferred the funds; or whether it is [related to] the demand that Iran stop uranium enrichment and only then they [Russia] will continue with the preparations," Landau said. "I tend to think that the second explanation is perhaps the more plausible."
Fading diplomacy
Crucially, the Russian suspension of nuclear fuel supplies will further undermine diplomatic efforts to convince Iran to agree to the suspension of autonomous uranium reprocessing in return for an international aid package proffered last June by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
This included an offer of light water reactors, atomic and other technological aid, in return for a guaranteed Russian nuclear fuel supply and the re-export of spent fuel.
"If the Iranian government were inclined to try to find a diplomatic solution, it would be able to use the Monday announcement as a face-saving way of saying, "We achieved our goal of industrial-scale enrichment, so now, we can afford to take a technical pause and negotiate on the basis of the proposal put forward by Mr Solana last June,"" Fitzpatrick said, adding that he did not believe Iran was ready end enrichment.
Spinning the centrifuges
Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani confirmed on Monday that work had begun on injecting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into an undisclosed number of the 3,000 centrifuges he says are to be installed at Natanz.
"On 21 February, when the IAEA last reported on the status of the underground enrichment production facility at Natanz, the IAEA said Iran had installed two 164-centrifuge cascades and was nearing completion on two more.
That was a total of 656. Going from that number to 3,000 in six weeks is impossible for a country that is just a beginner in the field of uranium enrichment," he said.
Ahmadinejad had been expected to announce that the 3,000 centrifuges were operational in January but failed to do so, in an indication that Iran may be struggling in centrifuge fabrication or in ensuring a sufficient supply of uranium hexafluoride UF6 for their operation.
According to reports, an estimated 50,000-60,000 centrifuges would be needed for the indigenous supply of one nuclear reactor, while the continuous operation of a full series of 3,000 centrifuges would allow Iran to attain the nuclear material required for a nuclear weapon within a year.
The IAEA inspectors' report will provide the first confirmation of any major expansion in Iran's enrichment capacity.
Prospects
Monday's enrichment announcement confirms that Iran is determined to maintain its right to autonomous fuel production and to push on with nuclear development.
This further raises the prospects for wider regional nuclear proliferation and the attendant risk of a future nuclear arms race.
"There is the whole issue of additional nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, which has been a concern all along," Landau said. "The Gulf countries as a group made an announcement and now Jordan has made several announcements, all planning to make a nuclear program."
"The only short cut that I can think of is for a state like Saudi Arabia, which can perhaps buy a nuclear bomb and that could get them there quicker. But any kind of indigenous nuclear program is not going to become a reality anytime soon."
"There is a need to look at this as an opportunity to get some kind of security dialogue going […] to somehow find a way to address their [regional states'] concerns in a common framework, and not to address their concerns by becoming proliferators themselves," Landau said.
Fitzpatrick believes, "Iran should make a rational calculation about whether its national interests are best served by pursuing uranium enrichment despite the costs of sanctions and diplomatic isolation; or by stopping the program and reaping the benefits offered in the June 2006 [Solana] proposal."
Dr Dominic Moran is ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in the Middle East. Based in Zurich, Switzerland, the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), provides via the International Relations and Security Network a wide range of high-quality and comprehensive products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide. The ISN works to promote a better understanding of the strategic challenges we face in today’s changed security environment.
