VIENNA, Austria – Iran is expanding its uranium enrichment program even as the U.N. Security Council focuses on possible sanctions for its defiance of a demand to give up the activity and ease fears it seeks nuclear weapons, diplomats said Monday.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the information to media, said that within the past few weeks Iranian nuclear experts had started up a second pilot enrichment facility.
While the 164 centrifuges were not producing enriched uranium, even the decision to “dry test” them showed Iran’s defiance of the Security Council. The council had set an Aug. 31 deadline for Tehran to cease all experiments linked to enrichment. It may start full deliberations on sanctions as early as later this week.
Iran produced a small batch of low-enriched uranium – suitable as nuclear fuel but not weapons grade – in February, using its initial cascade of 164 centrifuges at its pilot plant at Natanz. The process of uranium enrichment can be used to generate electricity or to create an atomic weapon, depending on the level of enrichment.
Iran said it plans to install 3,000 centrifuges at its enrichment plant in Natanz, central Iran, by the end of this year. Industrial production of enriched uranium in Natanz would require 54,000 centrifuges.
Although it is nowhere near that goal, successful testing of other “cascades” would indicate that Tehran is slowly mastering the complexities of producing enriched uranium.
A U.N. official said that even a “dry-run” allows Tehran “to develop the technology, to make sure that things work.”
Another U.N. official said Iran had the technical means to start the second cascade several months ago, but apparently had decided to wait until the recent collapse of EU attempts to revive negotiations on an enrichment freeze with the Islamic republic.
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