NKorea built plant to make gas for uranium enrichment

North Korea may have constructed a plant to manufacture a gas needed for uranium enrichment in a development that would indicate that Pyongyang had opened a second way to build nuclear weapons as early as the 1990s, The Washington Post reported late Sunday.

Citing a previously unpublicized account by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb program, the newspaper said North Korea may have been enriching uranium on a small scale by 2002, with maybe 3,000 or even more centrifuges.

Pakistan helped North Korea with vital machinery, drawings and technical advice for at least six years, the report said.

The Post said Khan's account could not be independently corroborated. But one US intelligence official and a US diplomat said his information adds to their suspicions that North Korea has long pursued the enrichment of uranium in addition to making plutonium for bombs.

It also may help explain Pyongyang's assertion in September that it is in the final stages of such enrichment, the paper noted.

Khan described his dealings with the country in official documents and in correspondence with a former British journalist, Simon Henderson, who said he thinks an accurate understanding of Pakistan's nuclear history is relevant for US policymaking, the report pointed out.

The Post independently verified that the documents were produced by Khan.

Khan's account of the pilot plant depicts relations between the two countries' scientists as exceptionally close for nearly a decade, the paper said.

Khan says, for example, that during a visit to North Korea in 1999, he toured a mountain tunnel, according to the report. There his hosts showed him boxes containing components of three finished nuclear warheads, which he was told could be assembled for use atop missiles within an hour.

His visit occurred seven years before the country's first detonation, prompting some current and former US officials to say that Khan's account, if correct, suggests North Korea's achievements were more advanced than previously known, and that the country may have more sophisticated weapons, or a larger number, than earlier estimated, The Post said.

But Siegfried Hecker, a former Los Alamos National Laboratory director who was allowed to see some North Korean plutonium during a visit to its nuclear facilities in January 2004, said after hearing Khan's description of the trip he remains unconvinced that the country in 1999 had enough fissile material on hand to make such weapons.

The Post quotes Hecker as saying that Khan may have tried to get himself "off the hook" by implying that his own illicit technical assistance to Pyongyang was irrelevant because "these guys already had nuclear weapons."

Israel says Iran nuclear plant immune to conventional strike

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Iran's recently diclosed second uranium enrichment plant is "immune" to conventional bombing.

"The new site near Qom is meant for enrichment. What was revealed by the Iranians had been built over years and is located in bunkers that cannot be destroyed through a conventional attack," Barak told parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee.

Iran notified the UN nuclear watchdog in September that it was building a second enrichment plant near the central shrine city of Qom, after Washington accused it of covertly evading its notification responsibilities under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Confirmation of the construction work drew criticism not only from Western governments but also from the United Nations.

Enriched uranium can make the fuel for nuclear power plants but in highly extended form can also produce the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Along with Western governments, Israel suspects Iran of seeking to develop a weapons capability under the guise of a civil nuclear programme, an accusation Tehran denies.

Along with its US ally, Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has refused to rule out a resort to military action to prevent Iran developing a bomb.

Barak said he feared Iran could develop a weapon by 2011.

"I believe that by early 2010 Iran will hold threshold technology (for building a bomb). That means that if it wanted, it could develop nuclear weapons within a year from obtaining threshold technology," a senior official quoted him as telling the parliamentary committee.

Iran Agrees to Nuclear Fuel Swap - NYTimes.com

Iran Agrees to Nuclear Fuel Swap - NYTimes.com

Iran is ready to exchange the bulk of its stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods -- as proposed by the U.N. -- but according to its own mechanisms and timetable, the foreign minister said Saturday.

The minister's remarks come just days before an expected meeting between the U.S. and allies to discuss new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. The offer, however, falls far short of the conditions set by the international community.

Speaking to reporters at a regional security conference in Bahrain, Manochehr Mottaki said Iran agreed with a U.N. deal proposed in October in which up to 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of its uranium would be exchanged for fuel rods to power its research reactor.

''We accepted the proposal in principle,'' he said through a translator. ''We suggested in the first phase we give you 400 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium and you give us the equivalent in 20 percent uranium.''

Iran has about 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium and needs to refine to 20 percent to operate a research reactor that produces medical isotopes.

Uranium enriched at low levels can be used as fuel for nuclear energy, but when enriched to 90 percent and above, it can be used as material for a weapon. The United States and five other world powers have been trying to win Iran's acceptance of a deal under which Tehran would ship most of its low-enriched uranium stockpile abroad to be processed into fuel rods, which can't be enriched further.

The deal would leave Iran -- at least temporarily -- without enough enriched uranium to produce a bomb. However, after signaling in October that it would accept the proposal, Iran has since balked, giving mixed signals over the deal, including several statements from lawmakers rejecting it outright.

Mottaki maintained, however, that a clear proposal had been given involving the simultaneous exchange of uranium for fuel rods in stages.

''We gave a clear answer and we responded and our answer was we accepted in principle but there were differences in the mechanism,'' he said, suggesting the exchange take place on Iran's Kish island, in the Persian Gulf.

It is not clear, however, if the low-enriched uranium would then remain on the island or could be shipped out of the country -- a necessary condition to any deal from the standpoint of the international community.

The world powers are also unlikely to accept a long drawn out exchange in stages, as it would allow Iran to maintain enough enriched uranium inside the country to possibly build a weapon.

Iran, meanwhile, wants to receive the fuel rods immediately in exchange for its uranium for fear that France or Russia could renege deal.

Last month, the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency endorsed a resolution from the six powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- criticizing Iran for defying a U.N. Security Council ban on uranium enrichment and continuing to expand its operations.

It also censured Iran for secretly building a second facility and demanded that it immediately suspend further construction.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said last month that the U.N. offer has been ''comprehensively rejected'' by Iran. A diplomat from one of the six powers said Wednesday that America's Western allies were waiting for Washington to formally declare the wait for an Iranian response over, probably by the end of this month.

The six countries are expected to meet next week to discuss what action to take over Iran.

EU leaders said they would support further U.N. sanctions unless Tehran starts cooperating over its nuclear program.

Iran: 2nd Nuclear Enrichment site heightens tensions

Iran's newly-revealed second uranium enrichment site is a "political message" that neither sanctions nor a possible military strike will halt its nuclear program, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the site disclosed in September, knowsn as Fordo, near Qom, was being built in case its main Natanz enrichment plant was bombed.

The U.N. watchdog IAEA says Iran was legally bound to reveal the project at least two years ago, according to Reuters.

On Monday, an IAEA report said Iran's acknowledgement of the site was long overdue and "reduced confidence" that Tehran was not hiding other sites that could perhaps support other nuclear facilities, Reuters reported.

The report stated that Iran told the IAEA that it had begun constructing the plant within a bunker under a mountain in late 2007, but the IAEA had satellite pictures and intelligence evidence pointing to a construction start date of 2002.

Iran granted IAEA inspectors access to the site on Oct. 26-27, but didn't provide them with access to its director or architects. The report said Iran had not yet convinced the agency that the country had ruled out the existence of more hidden sites.

"We reject this 100 percent," said Soltanieh, according to Reuters. "This kind of judgment is absolutely wrong, unfair, political and beyond the (IAEA's) mandate. There is no justification for it."

The U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are seeking to persuade Iran to accept an enrichment freeze under a plan of exporting Iran's enriched material abroad.

"That offer has been comprehensively rejected," warned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown late Monday. "So it is now not only right but necessary for the world to apply concerted pressure to the Iranian regime."

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama said in China there would be consequences if Iran would not demonstrate that its nuclear program was "peaceful and transparent" and has called for an answer to the U.N. deal by the end of the year.

Soltanieh responded saying that Obama's remarks would weaken the U.N. watchdog by casting doubt on its findings.

The agency stated that Iran had fully cooperated with the agency and inspections could continue, he maintained.

"The new Fordo site is a clear political message that neither U.N. Security Council sanctions nor the threat of military attack can stop (our) enrichment under full scope safeguards of the IAEA," Reuters quoted Soltanieh.