Iran going ahead with nuclear plant construction

Vienna: Iran is pressing ahead with the construction of a research reactor that Western experts say could eventually produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon if Tehran decides to make one, a UN report showed on Wednesday.

In another development the UN International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had added to its capacity to refine uranium, which can also provide the fissile core of a bomb if enriched to a high level.

The IAEA also said Iran had asphalted a part of a military site, Parchin, that the UN agency wants to visit.

That may fuel Western suspicions that Tehran is trying to remove traces of possible nuclear arms-related experiments there, perhaps a decade ago, something Iran denies.

It would now probably be “very difficult” for UN inspectors to find any traces at Parchin even if they were allowed access, which Iran has so far refused, one diplomat familiar with the country’s nuclear programme said.

The quarterly IAEA report was issued amid apparent deadlock in diplomatic efforts to resolve a decade-old dispute that threatens to trigger a new war in the Middle East.

Washington said Iran was “advancing its enrichment programme in blatant violation of its international obligations”.

“This report marks an unfortunate milestone with regard to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities,” US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

Iran denies accusations that it is seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons, saying it needs nuclear technology for energy and medical purposes and that it is Israel’s arsenal that threatens peace.

Western concerns about Iran are focused largely on uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow.

But experts say the research reactor under construction near the central town of Arak may also be a proliferation issue as it could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel were reprocessed, something Iran says it has no intention of doing.

Iran has transported the reactor vessel - which would contain the fuel - to the heavy water plant but has not yet installed it, the IAEA report issued to member states said.

Other major components for the reactor, including control room equipment, have yet to be put in place there, it added.