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Iran Leader to Announce Atomic Steps

By RICK GLADSTONE February 14, 2012

Iran signaled on Tuesday that it had made further advances in the country’s disputed nuclear energy program, announcing that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would reveal “key nuclear achievements” on Wednesday. An Iranian news agency said he was likely to proclaim that a new uranium enrichment plant built inside a mountain near the holy city of Qum was “fully operational.”

The announcement appeared timed to convey the defiant message that the increasingly harsh Western economic sanctions imposed on Iran were having no effect on the government’s determination to proceed with its nuclear program. The United States, Europe and Israel have all called the program a cover for Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons capability, an accusation that Iran denies.

The new uranium enrichment plant, known as Fordo, has raised Western concerns because it is buried deep underground, making it more impervious to scrutiny. The Fordo plant also has elevated distrust of Iran because the plant’s construction had been kept a secret until Western intelligence confirmation of its existence forced the Iranians to acknowledge the plant in September 2009, just as President Obama and European allies were announcing it. The Iranians said at the time that they had always intended to reveal the plant’s existence.

Last month, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran had started uranium enrichment at Fordo.

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said that Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has made Iran’s nuclear energy autonomy a signature issue, would “unveil a number of key nuclear achievements on Wednesday to demonstrate the scientific capabilities of Iranian scientists to world nations.” The agency did not further specify the nature of the achievements but said that “Iranian scientists are never afraid of global arrogance and are determined to conquer peaks of success and progress.”

The semiofficial Mehr News Agency, quoting what it called informed sources, said it was “more than likely that the president will announce that the Fordo enrichment facility has become fully operational.”

Fordo is Iran’s second major uranium enrichment plant, with an older one in the central desert city of Natanz, first revealed in 2002. The Fordo plant takes uranium fuel that has been enriched to 4 percent purity at Natanz and further enriches it to 20 percent purity, a level that can make fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. But it is far easier to make bomb-grade fuel from the 20 percent purity concentration than from 4 percent, which has been one source of Western concern about Iran’s ultimate intentions.

In a dispatch from Tehran, Russia’s RIA Novosti News Agency reported that Iran’s announcement on Wednesday would also include the insertion of its first domestically produced nuclear fuel rod into the Tehran research reactor in a ceremonial event attended by Mr. Ahmadinejad. The agency quoted Ali Bagheri, deputy chief of Iran’s national security council, as the source of its information.

Ria Novosti said the insertion of such rods “would make a significant step forward in Iran’s nuclear program.”

Iran has often exaggerated its nuclear achievement claims as part of an effort to frustrate the sanctions effort and gain negotiating leverage with the West. But those negotiations have been suspended for more than a year, and the Iranians have sent mixed signals on whether, and when, they want to renew them.

Word of Iran’s impending announcement came as tensions have escalated in particular with Israel, which regards Iran as an existential threat and has hinted at the possibility of a pre-emptive military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to forestall its suspected ambitions.

Iran insists that the nuclear program is peaceful and it has accused Israel, a nuclear weapons state, of responsibility for a clandestine campaign aimed at sabotaging Iran’s nuclear ambitions, including the assassinations of at least four Iranian scientists since 2010. Israel has counteraccused Iran in recent days of retaliatory plots aimed at Israeli targets in Georgia, India and Thailand, which Iran has denied.

Artin Afkhami contributed reporting.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/world/middleeast/iran-expected-to-announce-advances-in-nuclear-program.html?_r=1