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[jmhollen]

Evidence grows of Iran nukes
Fri 20 February, 2004 17:50

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - Western diplomats who follow the U.N. nuclear agency are increasingly certain Iran had an atomic weapons programme after recent reports that essential components had been found for making nuclear fuel or nuclear bombs.

Diplomats on the nuclear agency's governing board and a U.S. official said on Thursday U.N. inspectors in Iran had discovered components which were usable in advanced centrifuges for extracting enriched uranium.

Tehran repeated on Friday it had no such equipment, contradicting multiple reports that the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had discovered such technology.

"There was a report that they found (advanced P2 enrichment centrifuge) parts in some military base, which was not true," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Reuters.

"What we have is a research project that hasn't been implemented yet. There are no (P2 centrifuge) parts in any place in Iran. They are just trying to create a fuss about this."

But one diplomat said the U.N. inspectors had found several assembled centrifuges based on the "P2" design, which is a Pakistani version of the European-developed "G2" centrifuge.

"The centrifuges were apparently assembled but the Iranians say they never put uranium into them," the diplomat said.

Several Western diplomats dismissed the Iranian denials.

"The aggregate of evidence clearly demonstrates that Iran is pursuing a covert nuclear programme in the best case and in the worst case a covert weapons programme. The evidence points to the latter," a diplomat said.

The circle of diplomats who agree with the U.S. line that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme appears to be widening, with even some non-Western diplomats saying it was becoming increasingly difficult to give Tehran the benefit of the doubt.

WEAPONS-GRADE MATERIAL

Experts say that acquiring weapons-grade material is the biggest hurdle that countries seeking to make an atomic bomb must overcome.

In October, Iran gave the Vienna-based IAEA a declaration of its nuclear programme but made no mention of anything related to P2 technology, which some diplomats are now saying was a serious omission.

"We don't view that the information Iran provided was complete or correct," one of the diplomats said.

Iran's P2 designs, components and centrifuges are among the items IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to discuss in detail in a report expected to be circulated next week.

Experts say the P2 is twice as productive as the first-generation "P1", which Iran has learned to mass-produce to outfit its underground Natanz enrichment facility with tens of thousands of the machines.

Tehran had kept its P1 centrifuge technology hidden from the IAEA but acknowledged last year it had secretly purchased enrichment technology through a global nuclear black market.

A key player in the global black market was the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who Malaysian police said on Friday sold Iran centrifuge parts for $3 million in the mid 1990s. It was unclear if this was P1 or P2 technology.

Western diplomats said both the P1 and P2 centrifuge almost certainly came from Khan through "middlemen". Diplomats said Libya also acquired P1 and P2 technology through Khan. After months of denials by Pakistani officials that their country had provided any nuclear aid to any foreign country, Khan recently admitted to leaking nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.