End Of Days News
(Reuters) -
Iran appears to
be advancing in its
construction of a research reactor Western
experts say could offer the Islamic state a second way of producing material for
a nuclear bomb, if it decided to embark on such a course, a U.N. report
showed.
has almost completed installation of
cooling and moderator circuit piping in the heavy water plant near the town of
Arak, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a confidential
report issued to member states late on Thursday.
Nuclear analysts say this type of reactor could yield plutonium for nuclear
arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed, something
Iran has said it has no intention of doing.
Iran has said it "does not have reprocessing activities", the IAEA
said.
In its previous report on Iran, in November, the Vienna-based U.N. agency
said installation work at Arak was continuing, without giving any indication of
how far advanced it was.
Iran rejects Western allegations it seeks to develop a capability to assemble
nuclear weapons, saying its atomic program is entirely peaceful and that the
Arak reactor will produce isotopes for medical and agricultural use.
Iran says it plans to begin operating the facility in the first quarter of
2014, the IAEA said. Tehran last year postponed the planned start-up from the
third quarter of 2013, a target that Western experts said always had seemed
unrealistic.
The Arms Control Association, a Washington-based research and advocacy group,
said late last year that it was questionable whether Iran would be able to meet
the new target date as well, in view of "significant delays and impeded access
to necessary materials" because of international sanctions imposed on
Iran.
Western worries about Iran are focused largely on uranium enrichment plants
at Natanz and Fordow, as such material refined to a high level can provide the
fissile core of an atomic bomb. But experts say Arak may also be a proliferation
issue.
The Arak facility is a "growing source of concern", said Mark Fitzpatrick,
director of the non-proliferation and disarmament program of the International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think-tank.
Israel, believed to be the Middle East's
only nuclear-armed state, sees Iran's nuclear program as a serious danger and
has threatened to attack its atomic sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to
resolve the decade-old dispute.
If it does, the nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Arak in central Iran are
likely to be targets. Fitzpatrick said it could be Arak that triggers a conflict
because attacking it after it is launched could cause an environmental
disaster.
TESTING FUEL FOR ARAK REACTOR
Thursday's quarterly IAEA report showed Iran expanding its uranium enrichment
program in defiance of tightening Western sanctions, installing advanced
centrifuge machines at its main enrichment plant near the town of
Natanz.
The report, issued just a few days before six world powers and Iran are due
to resume negotiations after an eight-month hiatus, underlined the tough task
facing the West in seeking to pressure Tehran to curb its nuclear
activities.
Cliff Kupchan, Middle East director at the Eurasia consultancy, said Iran had
adopted a defiant policy of pressing ahead with its nuclear program, despite
harsh sanctions.
"As a result,
Israel and the U.S. Congress will press a
receptive U.S. administration to move forward with new and even harsher
sanctions," he said in a research note.
Enriched uranium can fuel
nuclear power plants, Iran's stated aim,
but also provide the explosive core of a nuclear weapon if refined much further.
Making plutonium from spent fuel is a second way of obtaining potential bomb
material.
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a U.S.
think-tank, noted that Iran planned to use a
medical research reactor in Tehran, known
as TRR, to test fuel for Arak.
"The TRR is now more than a medical isotope production reactor, Iran's stated
use for the reactor, and is necessary for the operation" of Arak, it said in a
report.
If operated optimally, the heavy-water plant could produce about nine
kilograms (20 pounds) of plutonium a year, or enough for about two nuclear bombs
annually, ISIS has said previously.
"Before it could use any of the plutonium in a nuclear weapon, however, it
would first have to separate the plutonium from the irradiated fuel," it added
on its website.
Iran has repeatedly declared it has no plans to reprocess the spent fuel.
But, "similarly sized reactors ostensibly built for research" have been used by
India, Israel,
North
Korea and
Pakistan to make plutonium for weapons,
Fitzpatrick said.
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