Friday, 25 September 2009
From Times Online
September 25, 2009
Iran admits to secret second nuclear plant
Nico Hines
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has denied that he is attempting to build nuclear weapons
Iran has admitted to running a secret second uranium enrichment plant, pre-empting President Obama and Gordon Brown who were due to reveal its existence to the world later today.
Tehran sent a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna confessing that they have concealed the nuclear facility inside a mountain.
Mr Brown, Mr Obama and President Sarkozy were due to make the dramatic announcement within hours, before the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh.
Western intelligence agencies have been monitoring the illicit site for years but the leaders decided to publicise the findings after learning that Iran had recently discovered that the project was under surveillance, according to The New York Times.
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Pressure has been mounting on Iran this week to halt its nuclear programme as world leaders at the United Nations warned of the threat posed by Tehran to a global consensus on disarmament.
Britain indicated at the UN that “far tougher sanctions” must await Iran if it failed to answer international concerns at a pivotal meeting with Western powers next week.
The emboldened calls to action came after Russia finally conceded that sanctions may be inevitable, after intense lobbying by the Americans.
President Ahmadinejad was among the leaders to make a speech at the UN General Assembly this week and he used the opportunity to repeat claims that Iran required only a civilian nuclear programme for the production of energy.
The Islamic Republic insists that it has the right to generate fuel for what it says will be a nationwide chain of nuclear reactors.
Iranian opposition leaders disputed that claim last night, suggesting that Mr Ahmadinejad was working to build nuclear warheads at two previously unknown weapons factories.
European officials said that the letter from Tehran to the IAEA contained no details about the location of the second facility, when it had started operations or the type and number of centrifuges it was running.
White House officials, however, have indicated that the second facility is located 100 miles southwest of Tehran in a mountainous region near the city of Qom, one of the holiest Shia cities in the Middle East.
With a showdown meeting between world leaders and Iranian officials in Turkey just days away, Mr Brown had already warned that the Iranian nuclear crisis was coming to a head before today’s revelations.
Russia’s apparent shift in attitude robs Tehran of one of its most entrenched supporters. China remains the last of the five permanent members of the Security Council opposed to sanctions — and it voiced that position from Beijing yesterday. That stance will now be more difficult to justify.
The aligning of world powers behind tough action on Iran sets the scene for the talks in Turkey on October 1, when representatives of the “E3 plus 3”, the five Security Council veto-wielding powers and Germany, meet Iranian officials in the first direct talks between the US and Iran in 30 years.
Iran is already under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to halt enrichment.
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