In a confidential document disclosed on Friday, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium has increased significantly over the past two months.
Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium gas has grown by 8 percent to nearly 8.4 tonnes in about two months, U.N. atomic inspectors say, an amount world powers probably will want to see cut under any nuclear deal with Tehran. …
The IAEA report said Iran’s stock of uranium gas refined to a fissile concentration of up to 5 percent stood at 8,390 kg, a rise of 625 kg since its previous report in September. …
Iran agreed under last year’s temporary accord with the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and China to limit its reserve of low-enriched uranium gas by converting new production into a less proliferation-sensitive oxide form, which it started doing a few months ago.
Reuters reported further that “[t]he stockpile is now above the defined level but Iran still has time to reduce it before the temporary deal expires this month, when it is supposed to be replaced by a long-term one.” Mark Fitzpatrick, the director of the non-proliferation program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), was quoted by Reuters as saying that the P5+1 nations would likely “want to see the holding sharply reduced in any permanent settlement.” Based on its history of nuclear negotiations, Iran would likely demand a reward for complying with this request.
The IAEA report slammed Iran for failing to come clean about its past nuclear research. The IISS noted that the IAEA report found that Iran was feeding uranium into centrifuges it hadn’t previously used to enrich, in violation of last November’s Joint Plan of Action (JPA).
Allowing Iran to maintain or increase its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium was a controversial provision of the JPA. In a conference call shortly before the JPA was formally announced, Emily Landau of the Institute for National Security Studies said (.pdf):
Obviously, Iran at this point has no plausible civilian explanation for enriching to 3.5% in light of its vast stockpile of 3.5% enriched uranium, the vast stockpiles that it already has. But it’s equally clear that these stockpiles have potentially dangerous implications as far as enriching, obviously, to the high levels needed for nuclear weapons. So continuing to enrich to 3.5% without a plausible civilian explanation for that is not a freeze.
In a separate conference call, former IAEA official Olli Heinonen pointed out (.pdf) that even 3.5% enriched uranium is significant step towards creating the fissile material necessary for a nuclear weapon.
Same is with the nuclear material inventories because you need, in addition to centrifuges, you need nuclear material as a feed, whether it’s a 3.5% or a 20% enriched, the consequences and implications are somewhat different. So when we look at this risk, we need to look at these three factors together: how much enrichment capability, how much uranium enriched is in Iran and which type, and the third area is which are the unknowns? And then you set up your scheme. And then we look – lets look just purely at 20% enriched uranium and 3.5% enriched uranium. Once you produce weapons grade uranium and you already have 20% enriched uranium, actually you have done 90% of your work. Very often, I hear scholars talking about medium-enriched uranium when they talk about 20% enriched uranium. It’s not really the case, because this is not the cup half full or the cup half empty, it’s a cup 90% full because you need only to do that tiny small additional 10% away for it to produce highly enriched uranium.
Both conference calls were hosted by The Israel Project, publisher of The Tower.
Shortly after his tenure as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator ended, Hassan Rouhani, now Iran’s president, said, “Having fuel cycle capability almost means that the country that possesses this capability is able to produce nuclear weapons, should that country have the political will to do so.” With large amounts of enriched uranium and uncertainty if all of Iran’s centrifuges are accounted for, it is uncertain that an Iranian nuclear breakout could be detected by international authorities.
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