Iran, Defiant, Insists It Plans to Restart Nuclear Program 
By Elaine Sciolino
January 10, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/international/middleeast/10iran.html

PARIS, Jan. 9 - Defying its European partners and the United States, Iran plans to reopen its vast uranium enrichment complex to resume nuclear activities that it suspended 14 months ago, officials involved in negotiations with Iran said Monday.
Iran told the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency last week that it was planning to restart nuclear research and development, without specifying what type of activities it would resume, or where. 
But in messages and letters to the agency in recent days, Iran said it planned to reopen the enrichment complex, in Natanz in central Iran, and perhaps an unspecified number of other sites, said the officials, who declined to be identified by name because they lack authorization to discuss the matter for attribution. 
The Iranian move came in defiance of unusual separate messages delivered to the Tehran government over the weekend by Russia and China, as well as the United States, Britain and France. The messages warned Iran not to embark on further uranium activities.
Britain, France and the United States tried to have the five countries submit one joint declaration to Iran, but China, not wanting such a move to look like an attempt to gang up on Tehran, insisted that five separate messages be delivered. All said much the same thing.
European and American diplomats said enlisting China and Russia amounted to a further ratcheting up of pressure on Iran, because the five countries possess nuclear weapons and are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The United States wants the Council to impose sanctions on Iran if it does not abandon its suspected nuclear ambitions.
The stated plan by Iran to reopen its uranium enrichment plant reflects a high-stakes gamble by Iran to test its legal right to conduct certain nuclear activities under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, the main treaty governing the spread of nuclear technology.
The United States, and to an increasing extent European governments, say they believe that Natanz is part of a long-suspected nuclear weapons program that they contend is more advanced than the Iraqi program was at its height under Saddam Hussein's rule. 
The operations at the Natanz site were kept secret from the atomic energy agency and were not confirmed by its inspectors until February 2003. The inspectors found preparations for the construction of more than 50,000 centrifuges - tall, thin machines that spin at supersonic speed to enrich uranium so that it can be used in nuclear reactors. 
When uranium is enriched to a very high degree, it can be used in a nuclear weapon. The fast-spinning centrifuges could make fuel for up to 20 nuclear weapons a year, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 
For Iran's clerical leadership and even much of its population, Natanz is synonymous with modernity and power.
Iran insists that its goal at Natanz is to conduct research and produce fuel for a civilian nuclear power program. Some of Iran's most experienced nuclear scientists used to work there, and Iran described the closing of the complex - under an agreement with France, Britain and Germany in November 2004 to freeze most of its nuclear activities - as voluntary and temporary.
In Tehran, Gholam Hossein Elham, a government spokesman, said Monday at a news conference that Iran would resume nuclear research and development, as announced last week to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran will today resume nuclear fuel research as scheduled, he said, without giving any details.
Agency officials in Vienna and their inspectors in Iran struggled without success throughout the day to wring information from the government about its plans, as Tehran had asked that the activities be carried out under the watchful eyes of the inspectors.
By day's end the agency said the research at Natanz had not yet restarted. Our inspectors who were at the scene today reported that there was no new activity or breaking of seals, said Melissa Fleming, an agency spokeswoman.
The sticking point appears to be Iran's indecision about whether to merely test its equipment or go further and conduct experiments with nuclear fuel, which Mohamed ElBaradei, the international agency's director, called a red line for the international community in an interview on Monday with the BBC.
He urged Iran to exercise maximum restraint, and predicted that the impasse with Iran could turn into a major crisis, because of Iran's lack of full cooperation with his agency and its plans to restart nuclear research.
The international nuclear agency has failed to persuade Iran to turn over some important information about its nuclear history and to give agency inspectors access to certain sites. But Iran's lack of openness is a separate issue from whether it has a legal right to conduct nuclear research.
Dr. ElBaradei acknowledged that a wide array of nuclear activities were permitted under the nonproliferation treaty. As a matter of law, Iran has the right to do all the nuclear activities, including enriching uranium, he told James P. Rubin in an interview on Monday with the London-based Sky News.
Iran's announcement that it planned to resume its nuclear research brought a new flurry of international condemnation.
Very, very disastrous signals are coming from Iran, Germany's new foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told reporters before a cabinet meeting outside Berlin. 
The White House on Monday warned Iran that it might be referred to the United Nations Security Council for possible censure or sanctions. The international community has already warned Iran that the next step would be a referral to the Security Council, said the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan.
Late last year, the 35-country board of the international nuclear agency voted to refer Iran's case for consideration by the Security Council if it did not meet its international obligations. But Russia, China and some other important countries are still resistant to Council action.
Marking the start of Austria's six-month presidency of the European Union on Monday, Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel said sanctions were always a possibility, adding that the 25-country union had always considered them a last resort.
Germany, France and Britain are concerned that Iran's newest move could shatter the agreement they reached in November 2004 under which Iran agreed to freeze most of its nuclear activities, including nuclear research, in exchange for a broad package of political and economic incentives.