- VIENNA (AP) -- Iran's insistence
that it has not produced weapons-grade uranium despite U.S. charges to
the contrary may well be true, a well-placed diplomat said Thursday.
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- The diplomat, who is accredited to the UN's International
Atomic Energy Agency, said testing of traces of weapons-grade uranium on
the centrifuge parts provided by Pakistan appear to match those found on
centrifuges bought by Iran on the nuclear black market headed by Pakistani
scientist A.Q. Khan.
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- That would strengthen arguments that the suspect traces
might have arrived in Iran together with the equipment itself, as the Iranians
state.
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- A senior diplomat close to the agency who is familiar
with the investigations did not discount such a conclusion, but said it
was too early to issue a definite judgment on the origin of the traces,
which were found on the equipment in Iran by agency experts two years ago.
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- Since then, IAEA experts have been urging Pakistan to
provide centrifuge components to compare the traces and assess Iran's claims
of innocence. The parts were finally provided by Islamabad last month.
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- The senior diplomat said the final results of the testing
at agency laboratories would take another two weeks to a month.
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- Both officials insisted on anonymity, saying they were
not authorized to discuss confidential information with reporters about
the state of investigations into Iran's nuclear program.
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- Ever since the traces were found on centrifuges in the
city of Natanz in 2003, Iran has insisted that they arrived on the equipment
from abroad. It says it is interested only in processing low-enriched uranium
for power generation.
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- The United States, which insists that Iran's clandestine
nuclear activities discovered three years ago were geared toward making
arms, asserts that the particles are evidence Iran was experimenting in
producing highly enriched uranium used only for making the core of nuclear
weapons.
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- The Americans and their allies also point to experiments
with plutonium, imports of equipment that can be used for nuclear weapons
program and other long-hidden Iranian activities to back their claims.
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- Natanz has been under agency purview since suspicions
about Iran's activities prompted IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei to tour its
nuclear facilities in February, 2002, including the incomplete plant in
that city about 480 kilometres south of Tehran.
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- Diplomats said Dr. ElBaradei was taken aback by the advanced
stage of a project using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium. Since
then, the Iranians have informed the agency of ambitious plans that included
running tens of thousands of centrifuges at the facility although that
project and others linked to enrichment are on hold during Iran-European
Union talks aimed at convincing Tehran to give up all enrichment ambitions.
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- An IAEA team arrived in Natanz on Thursday to monitor
the enrichment suspension, the senior diplomat said, adding he was unaware
of new developments at the facility beyond routine construction work known
to the agency.
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