30 November 2009: Financial Times
By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
In response to the revelation that Iran had been building an undeclared nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom, the United Nations nuclear watchdog asked Tehran whether it had any other such building plans.
On Sunday the Islamic republic delivered its answer, as the country’s cabinet issued instructions for work to begin on five uranium enrichment plants within the next two months, and five more at some unspecified date in the future.
Diplomats and analysts have detected a range of possible motives in Iran’s action. Some say the move could be intended to insulate Tehran from the kind of embarrassment it endured over the Qom plant, whose existence was detected by outside intelligence agencies and revealed to the world by President Barack Obama in September.
“The fact that Iran said it had already identified five sites suggests strongly that these plans were in the works for some time,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “When Qom was outed everyone had assumed that there could be other plants as well.”
The declaration may also be an attempt to justify Qom retrospectively.
Although US diplomats say such a small, isolated plant could provide material for one to two bombs a year, it would have been of little help on its own for Tehran’s plans for nuclear power.
Iran itself insists its programme is purely peaceful. President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad said on Sunday that the new sites were needed to produce 250-300 tonnes of low enriched uranium to help generate electricity. Uranium enrichment can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material.
Nevertheless, the announcement raises the tensions between Iran and the world’s big powers just as the US is preparing to shift from Mr
Obama’s policy of engagement to a push for UN sanctions in the new year.
It will also alarm Israel, which has often suggested in the past that it reserves the option of a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facility – a path of action the Obama administration has openly warned against.
Cliff Kupchan at the Eurasia group, a US-based consultancy, argued that Tehran was years away from completing enrichment facilities on the scale announced on Sunday. But he added that: “What many in the US will interpret as bluster will likely stoke Israeli fears.”
Ali-Akbar Salehi, Iran’s top nuclear official, whose organisation is now in charge of building the new sites, said the decision was a “firm response” to a vote two days before to censure Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
That vote, in part a response to the revelations about Qom, was hailed by Washington as a sign of international resolve about Iran’s nuclear programme, although securing agreement on UN sanctions may be harder to accomplish.
On sunday the US signalled the door was not closed on a deal.
“There remains a fleeting opportunity for Iran to engage with the international community, if only it would make that choice,” said a senior administration official.
