VIENNA, June 8: Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog have arrived in Iran to visit an underground facility and verify that Tehran has suspended all uranium enrichment activities there, diplomats said on Wednesday. Work on uranium enrichment at the Natanz facility in central Iran has been suspended since November under a pact with France, Britain and Germany, which are offering Tehran incentives to give up enrichment permanently.
Diplomats said inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) want to check Iran has kept its word on suspending uranium enrichment, a process of purifying fuel for use in nuclear power plants or weapons.
Iran has stuck to the letter of its agreement, the diplomats said. However, Tehran has quietly continued construction activity at Natanz to prepare for the day when they might want to resume enrichment, they added.
“IAEA inspectors have arrived in Iran to carry out a safeguards visit to the Natanz site,” a diplomat with access to Iran’s nuclear programme said.
He said Iran has been conducting ‘work on water and electric infrastructure, including piping, in the underground halls, to serve a cascade of at least 1,000 centrifuges’.
Centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning at supersonic speeds.
This appeared to be ‘an attempt by the Iranians to prepare themselves for the day when they decide to operate the facility (and end) their agreement with the Europeans’, he added.
Another Western diplomat said the work was not a violation of the EU suspension agreement, but did show Iran was ‘serious about wanting to pursue enrichment at Natanz’.
Iran, which says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only, has said the freeze at Natanz and elsewhere would last only until the end of next month, when the EU trio has promised to give Iran a detailed package of incentives.
The Europeans say they would back US calls to refer Iran’s case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if Tehran resumes uranium enrichment.
Sharing US suspicions that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, the EU three are determined to prevent Tehran from mastering enrichment and have demanded that it terminate the entire programme. Iran says enrichment is its sovereign right.
Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, confirmed that IAEA inspectors were due to visit Natanz on Thursday, but denied that any sensitive construction work was being conducted at the site.
“Inspectors are scheduled to visit Natanz tomorrow. Of course a large number of people work and live there and some changes need to be made to the electricity and water system,” Mr Saeedi said in Tehran.
Reporters who were taken on a tour of Natanz by government officials in March said that it was more than 18 metres underground and surrounded by at least 10 anti-aircraft batteries — ostensibly in case of US or Israeli airstrikes. An IAEA official declined comment except to say the agency’s chief would brief the IAEA board of governors on Iran next week.
More than two years of IAEA inspections have uncovered no hard evidence proving that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. —Reuters
