USA, Washington, September 1 / Trend N.Bogdanova /
Interview with Senior Analyst on Iran's nuclear program at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), former employee of US State Department's Bureau of Political Military Affairs, U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, and at the U.N.'s Conference on Disarmament in Geneva Jacqueline Shire
Q. In his last report director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohammed El Baradei informs that Iran is decreasing the speed of the program of enrichment of uranium. Why do you believe Iran is doing that?
A. What happened is that Iran continued to install centrifuge, but it's not using the new centrifuge to enrich uranium yet. So, it sort of maintained a concept with the number of centrifuges enriching uranium or it actually on the day that IAEA was there slightly fewer centrifuges working. So, why do I think that's the case - I think that just because - you know, it could be a number of reasons: it could be political, it could be technical. There have been a lot of people since June 12th, at the same time the leadership of the Iranian Nuclear Agency changed, so I don't know the exact answer - there have been a lot of things.
Q. Since May Iran didn't increase its centrifuges. How do you think, is there a possibility, that the uranium resources of Iran may exhausted?
A. No, Iran did. I mean, they have now over 8000 centrifuges installed - and in May they had under 7000 centrifuges, so they did increase centrifuges.
Concerning uranium - no. Iran acquired from South Africa 1000 tons of uranium ore in 1970-1980th. It took that uranium to Isfahan and converted most of it into what is called uranium hexafluoride UF6.
That uranium - Yes. That is believed to be running low, but that uranium is many hundred tons of UF6. So, there is enough UF6 to keep Natanz busy for quite long time, but there isn't enough uranium to keep Isfahan busy for a long time. So, the running out of ore is the issue for Isfahan, it's an issue for uranium conversion, it's not an issue for Natanz - has a lot uranium to work with. At its current rate Natanz could keep going for 10-15 years. But Isfahan is not so busy.
Q. The IAEA's last report says that the official Tehran doesn't inform the organization about the connection between its military equipment and the nuclear program. How do you think, isn't this issue connected directly with Iran's national security and does Iran really have to report to IAEA about this issue according to organization's rules?
A. It's not an issue of national security. Iran is a member of a Non-Proliferation Committee and is a non-nuclear weapon state. If you are a non-nuclear weapon state, the IAEA's job is to come and verify the peaceful nature of your nuclear program and Iran is a question now, right? We don't really know about it exactly. So, the job of IAEA is to try to get answers to these questions. Iran so far is not giving the IAEA the kind of cooperation that this organization says it needs to get answers to those questions about the peaceful nature of its program. So, Iran has no excuse for the national security. If Iran is adhering to the treaty, then Iran is to cooperate with IAEA.
Q. How can the sanctions against Iran's energy sector create a situation that might stop Iran's nuclear program? Do you believe that this sanction is not against Iran's government, but is a pressure to the people of Iran?
A. The Security Council (SC) of UN has not adopted any energy related sanctions there under discussions by some members of the SC, but that's not what the SC has done and that's not the policy. To proceed to your question whether that would be effective or not effective - I don't know. I just don't think we are there yet - I think diplomacy still has more work to do before you could make the case successfully for sanctions against Iran's energy sector. And there are arguments about this issue - some people think they will be and some people say they will not be effective. The best sanctions I think are those which don't target the civilian population - they target the leadership. And on the other hand I'm not sure, the SC will pass the sanctions against Iran.