Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged yesterday
Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged yesterday.
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In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought, reprted the Financial Times.
They said Iran had accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz.
If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20 kg of fissile material -- enough for a bomb.
"It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb," said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday. This revealed that Iran's production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.
When the agency carried out an annual stocktaking of Natanz in mid-November Iran had produced 839 kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride -- over 200 kg more than previously thought. Tehran produced an additional 171 kg by the end of January.
"It's certain that if they didn't have it [enough] when the IAEA took these measurements, they will have it in a matter of weeks," said Zimmerman.
Iran's success in reaching such a "breakout capacity" -- a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months -- crosses a "red line" that for years Israel has said it would not accept.
UN officials emphasise that to produce fissile material Iran would have to reconfigure its Natanz plant to produce high enriched uranium rather than low enriched uranium, a highly visible step that would take months,u00a0or to shift its stockpile to a clandestine site.
No such sites have been proved to exist, although for decades Iran concealed evidence of its nuclear programme.
A senior UN official added that countries usually waited until they had an enriched uranium stockpile sufficient for several bombs before proceeding to develop fissile material. He conceded that Iran now had enough enriched uranium for one bomb.
David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said, "If Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons, it's entering an era in which it could do so quickly."
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