UN Inspectors Find Fresh Uranium in Iran

Paraphrased by:
Steve Waldrop
September 25, 2003

Traces of weapon's grade highly enriched uranium have been found at a second site in Iran says United Nations nuclear inspectors.

Minute quantities of the substance were found at the Kalaye Electric Company on the southern outskirts of Tehran.

According to sources at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is unclear whether the weapons-grade material was produced by Iran or the results of contamination from imported equipment.

Officials from the IAEA are in Iran looking for evidence of a possible nuclear weapons program.

Earlier this year, they found enriched uranium particles at a plant at Natanz.

An October 31 deadline has been set by the IAEA'a board of governors for Iran to disprove US claims that it is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons.

Iran says its nuclear programs are peaceful and that it only wants to produce low-enriched uranium, unusable in bombs. It says the Kalaye Electric Company site is not part of its nuclear power program but has been used for storing equipment.

Iran announced that it would scale back it cooperation with the IAEA in response to the October deadline.

The decision, announced by Iran's representative to the IAEA, suggests that Tehran will cooperate only in areas covered by agreements with the agency. After weeks of delay, the IAEA inspectors have finally been given access to sites not covered in such agreements.

Iran could be declared to be in breach of the treaty ( Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty ) banning the spread of nuclear weapons. If this happens at the next IAEA board meeting scheduled in November, the UN Security Council could be asked to get involved, and that could mean economic and political sanctions against Iran.