United Nations inspectors have arrived in Iran to examine a nuclear site that has heightened Western fears of a covert programme to develop atomic bombs, an accusation the Islamic Republic rejects.
”They arrived late last night for routine inspections,” Ali Shirzadian, a spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, told Reuters on Sunday. He gave no further details.
The UN experts were due to inspect Iran’s second enrichment plant, under construction about 160km south of Tehran.
The site was hidden by Iran for three years until last month, fanning Western suspicions.
Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants and also provide material for bombs if enriched further.
Iran, which says it wants only peaceful nuclear energy, agreed to open the nascent uranium enrichment site to monitoring at talks with six world powers held in Geneva on October 1 to slow a slide into confrontation over its nuclear activity.
But a second understanding struck in Geneva stumbled on Friday when Iran cast doubt on a plan to send abroad much of its enriched uranium reserve, of potential use for nuclear weapons, for processing into special fuel for nuclear medicine in Iran.
World powers regard the two steps as litmus tests of Iran’s stated intent to use enriched uranium only for civilian purposes and a basis for follow-up talks on curbing enrichment itself, which would bring Iran trade and technology rewards in return.
Iran has said the centrifuge plant being built in a military compound buried inside a mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom will refine uranium only for civilian nuclear energy.
Western diplomats and analysts say the site’s capacity appears too small to fuel a nuclear power station but enough to yield fissile material for one or two nuclear warheads a year.
The four-strong team from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards division, led by Herman Nackaerts, who oversees the Middle East region including Iran, declined comment to reporters in Vienna before boarding their flight.
Their stay in Iran is likely to last several days.
The inspectors intend to compare engineering designs to be provided by Iran against the actual facility, interview employees and take environmental samples to verify the site has no illicit military dimension. — Reuters