Iran nuclear output rising, leader says

Ignoring international condemnation, Iran announced Tuesday that it has begun to dramatically increase its capacity to produce enriched uranium and is adding newly developed high-speed centrifuges, which can be used to produce atomic material either for electricity or a nuclear bomb.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had begun installing 6,000 new uranium-enrichment centrifuges at its nuclear facility near the central Iranian town of Natanz, where 3,000 such devices already are operating. He also announced the introduction of what observers suspect are so-called IR-2 centrifuges, machines that experts say can enrich uranium up to three times as fast as the devices now in place.

Ahmadinejad struck a defiant, nationalistic tone, trumpeting his country’s nuclear accomplishments on its third annual National Day of Nuclear Technology, which marks the day in 2006 that Iran first produced enriched uranium.

“Iran’s victory will be a prelude to change in all relations all over the world,” Ahmadinejad told dignitaries and officials gathered for a ceremony Tuesday night. “The Iranian nation knows that standing on the summit of success will evoke the hatred of our enemies. But so far the Iranian nation has paid the least price for its success, and in the future it will be the same, minimum price for nuclear success.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled that nuclear weapons clash with Islam, and the country’s leaders insist that their nuclear program is meant only for civilian energy purposes.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of using a civilian atomic energy program to mask a drive to build weapons of mass destruction. The announced expansion quickly elicited criticism from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who termed it “dangerous” and called for stepped-up punishment of Iran.

“Today’s announcement shows clear intent to even further violate [United Nations] Security Council requirements,” said Gregory L. Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, in Vienna.

Iranian officials have frequently made claims about their nuclear program that failed to match actual accomplishments. Arms control experts said it would be at least four months before Iran’s new centrifuges could be operational, barring technical complications. In theory, 9,000 centrifuges, operating at maximum capacity and without errors, could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb in four months, experts say. Iran says it plans to ultimately house 50,000 centrifuges at its Natanz facility.

But Iran’s current devices are based on a “P-1” design, dating to the dawn of the nuclear age, and have been prone to malfunctions.

“The question is whether the P-1 they’re building is better than the P-1 they’ve got already,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control think tank in Washington. “It hasn’t worked well. It’s pitiful how poorly it’s performed.”

To circumvent P-1’s drawbacks, Iran also recently created the next-generation centrifuge, which it calls the IR-2, a design based on 1970s-era enrichment technologies that Tehran allegedly bought from the nuclear proliferation network of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan. Arms control experts call Iran’s development of the new centrifuge a technological breakthrough.

“They’re much better machines,” Albright said. “They both work better if you know what you’re doing, and they’re easier to make.”

Iran revealed a two-year program to develop the IR-2 late last year, adding to suspicions about its nuclear intentions.

Still, nonproliferation experts say the IR-2 is itself based on an antiquated design that has been surpassed many times in the West. On-site international inspectors monitor Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz continuously. In late May, IAEA inspectors are to present their latest findings to the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency’s board of governors and U.N. officials.

Arms control experts say producing enriched uranium is the most technically challenging aspect of building nuclear weaponry. U.S., European and Israeli officials worry that Iran is on a path to master the enrichment of uranium so it will have the capacity to quickly begin producing atomic weapons.

A U.S. National Intelligence Estimate late last year concluded that Iran had abandoned a clandestine nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Iran so far has produced uranium enriched to concentrations of less than 4%, international inspectors say, a fraction of the 80% enrichment required for weapons-grade material.

The Security Council last month imposed a third round of relatively mild economic sanctions on Iran over its enrichment program, a move Tehran called “unlawful.”

Schulte urged Iran to reconsider a 2006 offer by Europe, Russia, China and the United States to provide the country with nuclear technology and fuel, rather than further defying the Security Council’s demand to suspend enrichment. Iran said it rejected the 2006 offer because it did not want to rely on an outside source for nuclear fuel, and it insists that it has the right to produce its own, despite the Security Council resolutions ordering a halt.

“This approach has not brought Iran international respect or accolades but rather increasing censure and sanction,” Schulte said. “Negotiation, not escalation, provides the best path to international respect and regional security.”

--

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Daragahi from Beirut. Times staff writer Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.