10 new enrichment plants to be built in protected mountain sites despite UN opposition to controversial nuclear programme

By Ian Black

Source:

August 16, 2010

is to start building the first of 10 new uranium enrichment plants in protected mountain sites early next year – defying international efforts to rein in its controversial nuclear programme.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, as well as a vice-president, announced that the search for sites for the facilities had ended, state media reported today.

“Finding the location for the construction of 10 more uranium enrichment plants in Iran is over now,” Salehi told the broadcaster IRIB. “The construction of one of these sites will start by the end of this [Iranian] year [March] or the beginning of the next year. The new enrichment facilities will be built inside mountains.”

Iran is already enriching uranium at its main, internationally-monitored plant at Natanz and is building a second enrichment facility run by the Revolutionary Guards inside a mountain at Fordo, near Qom, southwest of Tehran.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are purely peaceful and argues that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it has the right to peaceful nuclear technology. But the UN last month imposed a fourth round of sanctions because of fears it may be secretly developing . The US and Israel – an undeclared outside the NPT – have both refused to rule out military action against Iran.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors as well as to make the fissile core of an atom bomb. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced plans to build the 10 new plants in late 2009, days after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, rebuked Iran for concealing the Fordo plant. The Islamic Republic has said it needs 20 large-scale sites to meet domestic electricity needs of 20,000 megawatts in the next 15 years.

Salehi’s announcement, made on Sunday, fits a pattern of statements that ignore international anxiety about Iran’s nuclear activities and signal determination to continue in the face of pressure.

David Cameron’s spokesman called Salehi’s announcement a cause for concern. “The reports that we have seen certainly do not give us any comfort that Iran is moving in the right direction,” Steve Field told reporters.

Ahmadinejad also officially notified the government of the implementation of a new law allowing only minimal cooperation with the IAEA.

The law, seen as a retaliation for the latest sanctions, also includes a provision authorising Tehran to retaliate against any countries that attempt to search Iranian ships or planes for dual-use materials with inspections of their own.

UN Security Council resolution 1929 calls on but does not require all countries to cooperate with inspections if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe the items could be used for nuclear purposes

Stewart Levey, the US Treasury under-secretary, meanwhile urged all countries be vigilant about Iranian attempts to evade sanctions, included repainting or renaming ships, falsifying documents and assigning vessel ownership to front companies outside Iran. Last week the US imposed sanctions on three Malta-based shipping companies owned directly or indirectly by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, the national carrier.

“We must redouble our vigilance over both their [Iran's] domestic shipping lines, and attempts to use third-country shippers and freight forwarders for illicit cargo,” Levey wrote in the Financial Times. “All shippers should exercise enhanced vigilance, particularly where shipments may involve Iran.”