The United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday that it had adequate monitoring measures in place at a site where Brazil says it is now enriching uranium.
”There are safeguard measures that have been agreed that will meet the agency’s requirements that there will be no diversion of nuclear material,” said Marc Vidricaire, spokesperson for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
He did not confirm that Brazil was actually enriching uranium, which makes fuel for nuclear power reactors but can also produce atom-bomb material.
Brazil on Friday had inaugurated, at an official ceremony, the first part of its uranium-enrichment plant in Resende, 180km south of Rio de Janeiro, designed to supply its civilian reactors.
While the IAEA has called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium to guarantee it is not secretly developing nuclear weapons, there are no such suspicions about Brazil.
In February, then United States White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said that Brazil had Washington’s trust.
”I think a difference here … that I would point out — if you’re talking about Brazil versus Iran — is one of trust,” McClellan told reporters.
Both Brazil and Iran have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and are working to produce their own enriched uranium — Brazil for its two existing reactors and a third one on the way; Iran, for its future reactors.
The enriched uranium from Resende is to cover 60% of the needs of the Angra I and Angra II power plants, which produce 40% of the energy consumed in Rio de Janeiro and 4,3% of Brazil’s energy needs.
Brazil has one of the world’s largest uranium reserves, but has been receiving enriched uranium from overseas.
Brazil had in 2004 cited trade secrets in initially denying IAEA inspectors access to the Resende facility, fearing that its technological advances in centrifuges would leak to competitors.
But the IAEA now feels it has the access it needs for its safeguards monitoring, Vidricaire said. — AFP
