Report: IAEA Finds Uranium Traces in Iran

[igloo]

Report: IAEA Finds Uranium Traces in Iran

Thursday , September 25, 2003

VIENNA, Austria — The International Atomic Energy Agency (search), the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, has found more traces of enriched uranium in Iran, according to news reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, diplomats told Reuters that the new traces of highly-enriched uranium were found at the Kalaye Electric Co (search). The discovery could support Tehran's explanation that the traces are due to contamination.

Earlier this year, the U.N. inspectors found traces of enriched uranium at Natanz (search), another nuclear site in Iran, raising suspicions that Iran had been secretly purifying uranium for a nuclear-weapons program.

Tehran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has blamed the Natanz find on machinery it says it purchased abroad.

IAEA officials were not immediately available for comment.

Iran has until Oct. 31 to prove to the IAEA that it has no secret nuclear-weapons program, as the United States alleges. It faces possible U.N. Security Council possible economic sanctions if it does not comply.

Iran had recently indicated it might be willing to negotiate with the IAEA, then changed tack when its envoy to the Vienna-based agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tehran would scale back cooperation.

"We have decided to fulfill our obligation under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (search) and not beyond that," Salehi said Monday. "It doesn’t mean that we are rejecting the additional protocol or are not prepared to talk on that."

U.S. officials said the nuclear situation should not be ignored and any sign of banned activity needed to be taken seriously.

"I think any proliferation of nuclear weapons or nuclear materials that could be producing nuke weapons is a serious problem," Sen. John Corzine, D-N.J., told Fox News on Thursday.

Corzine said, "it's interesting" that it was an international agency that made the discovery.

"It speaks to how important it is that we have strong and capable international institutions the United States needs to be supporting," he commented in an oblique reference to the White House's lack of enthusiasm for working with the United Nations and signing global treaties.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., stressed that Iran needed to be taken seriously.

"They're sending rather mixed signals, but bottom line, Iran supports terrorists," Coleman said, referring to Tehran's strong ties to Lebanese Hezbollah. "They're a danger and they have to be dealt with."