West reacts sharply to Iranian enrichment plan

Russian nuclear scientist reported in Iran designing Bomb

By ICEJ News

08 Feb 2010

Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West ratcheted up a notch on Monday, as American, French and German leaders all reacted sharply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement yesterday that he has ordered Iran’s atomic agency to enrich their stockpile of uranium to 20% purity.

French Defense Minister Herve Morin warned after talks in Paris with his US counterpart Robert Gates that the US and France will push for new UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

"We spoke about Iran. Our positions are in complete agreement," Morin, whose country now holds the rotating chair on the Security Council, told reporters at a joint appearance with Gates. "We have no choice but to work on other measures," he said.

"We are very much agreed that action by the international community is the next step,” concurred Gates, whose aides had earlier said the United States would ask France to submit a sanctions motion at the Council.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, meanwhile, insisted that Iran does not have the capacity to enrich uranium to 20 percent and accused Tehran of "blackmail." The Iranians "do not know how to make fuel" for their existing medical reactor, he told reporters at a meeting in Paris. "For what purposes do they want to enrich it to 20 percent?" he queried.

"(Sunday’s) statement shows that farce is being played out just like we have seen in the past,” agreed German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Nuclear weapons require uranium to be enriched to 90% purity, but after enriching to 20% Iran "would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium," said David Albright of the Washington DC based Institute for Science and International Security.

The diplomatic activity follows a front page report in the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday which revealed, quoting an International Atomic Energy Agency internal memo, that a nuclear scientist from the former Soviet Union’s national laboratory is in Iran developing a construction plan for functioning atomic warheads.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Moscow next Sunday for three days of intense negotiations which are sure to include urging Russia to join international efforts to impose crippling economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Although Russia is believed to be closer to agreement to impose a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran than China is, most analysts expect that Russia will continue a policy of half measures for the time being and that the US, UK, France Germany and perhaps some other Western nations will soon unilaterally impose their own sanctions outside the UN framework.

Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi presided over the opening of two new missile production factories on Saturday, one for the Qaem (Rising) air defense missile system and the other for the Toofan 5 (Storm) surface-to-surface missiles which can destroy tanks and other armored vehicles. On Monday, he followed this by opening two plants for the production of unmanned drone aircraft.

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