Iran one step closer to Nukes

Iran has made a technical breakthrough and is now able to produce enough uranium gas crucial to enrich uranium. Is the IAEA concerned at Iran's stuburn insistence on enriching uranium, researching missile technology and threatening the existense of countries? No at all, in fact they're quite impressed "the ingenuity demonstrated by Iranian scientists to overcome recent hitches was impressive"

Iran has taken a significant step forward in its nuclear programme by producing quantities of a gas crucial to the enrichment of uranium.

United Nations diplomats have revealed that Iran appeared to have overcome technical difficulties and produced small quantities of the gas, which is key to the enrichment process.
Enriched to 90 per cent, uranium can be used in a nuclear warhead.

Diplomats at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, said that until now they believed Iran's domestically produced IR2 centrifuges - the spinning machines which turn uranium into gas - had been "running on empty".

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This was despite repeated claims by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline president, that his scientists had mastered the technology.

But UN inspectors said they discovered last week that 10 of the machines are now producing small quantities of the uranium gas.

A UN diplomat told the Associated Press that the IR2 centrifuges were set up last month and began processing the uranium gas soon afterward as part of testing the machines.
David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector, said last week that the ingenuity demonstrated by Iranian scientists to overcome recent hitches was impressive.

The domestically produced centrifuges are believed to be relatively cheap to make and spin "very fast", aiding the enrichment process.

Of most concern, however, will be whether Iran is closer to linking up its centrifuges into "cascades".

Iran's underground nuclear facility at Natanz has space for 3,000 centrifuges, and when they are fitted together they will make up 18 cascades - the crucial number of linked machines needed to make weapons-grade uranium.

While the progress by Iran's atomic scientists will have pleased leaders in Teheran, one of the country's key allies dealt it a blow by signalling that it was edging closer to the West's view that the nuclear programme may be intended for non-peaceful purposes.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, issued a rare rebuke: "We don't approve of Iran's continuously demonstrating its intentions to develop its missile industry and continue uranium enrichment.

"From the point of view of international law, these activities aren't forbidden. However, it's necessary to take into account that the past years have shown a number of problems related to Iran's nuclear programme."

Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant, last month completed the shipment of uranium fuel for it. Mr Lavrov, who has significant influence in Teheran, urged Iran to refrain from taking a defiant posture towards the West.

"It would be reasonable to refrain from steps and statements heating the atmosphere and creating an impression that Iran is inclined to ignore the international community," he said.