Enriched uranium in Iran came from outside: IAEA

Daily Times:

The UN nuclear agency has concluded, pending checks by independent experts, that highly enriched uranium particles found in Iran were from imported equipment and not from work in making what can be the raw material for atom bombs, diplomats said on Friday. READ MORE

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has since February 2003 been investigating Iran on US claims that Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, is secretly developing atomic weapons. The latest finding “will be seen by those in favour of Iran as another checkmark in their column” to back up Tehran’s rebuttals, a diplomat close to the IAEA said. The atomic agency has for several months been carrying out sampling for uranium traces on centrifuge parts that Pakistan had shipped to the IAEA to compare with particles found on parts Iran acquired from the black market, allegedly also Pakistan.

“The conclusion shows the highly enriched uranium appears to emanate from Pakistan,” a diplomat close to the IAEA said.

But the diplomat said the results on cases of low enriched uranium (LEU) contamination, which is below weapons-grade, were “murky” and that the “LEU issue will probably never be solved.” Enriched uranium, refined by passing a uranium gas through a series, or cascade, of centrifuge machines, can be fuel for civilian nuclear power reactors or, in highly enriched form, the raw material for atom bombs.