Iran Admits to Having Second Uranium-Enrichment Plant

In a letter received this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has revealed that it has a second uranium-enrichment plant.

The second facility, said by the New York Times to be 100 miles to the southwest of Tehran, close to the holy city of Qum, but not yet operational, has apparently been known about by American officials for several years. However it was only recently that the Iranian authorities became aware that the West knew of the plant's existence and it is thought to be that fact which prompted the letter from Iran to the IAEA. In a move designed to increase pressure on the Iranians, prior to the opening of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh U.S. President Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will charge the Iranians with having deliberately concealed the construction of the second plant and then go on to demand that Iran allow an inspection of the facility without delay. According to the Associated Press Iran's letter to the IAEA provided little detail, other than acknowledging that a second plant has been built. It is believed that the plant could have 3,000 of the centrifuges used in the enrichment of uranium operational by next year. The Iranian nuclear plant at Natanz that has been the subject of IAEA inspections has 8,000 centrifuges, with the IAEA reporting in August that some 4,600 centrifuges were currently active. It is further reported that Iran intends to eventually have a facility at Natanz that has 50,000 centrifuges. In addition to the increase in enrichment capacity that Iran is developing the Associated Press, which is being briefed on the matter by a diplomat and an official from a European government who are both maintaining anonymity, says that the Iranians are looking to update the technology that they are using. The subject of three sets of United Nations sanctions in respect of its enrichment program, which it insists is for peaceful purposes only, Iran is meeting on October 1 with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - China, France, Russia, U.K. and U.S. - as well as Germany, to discuss that very program. But expectations of progress at the meeting may be low as Iran has declared that it does not intend to negotiate on its right to pursue a nuclear program. Fears remain that the Iranian enrichment program is motivated by the desire to acquire nuclear weapons, the New York Times noting that Western intelligence agencies had discovered during the early part of the decade that just such a weapons program was underway. Whilst that program is widely thought to have been ended in 2003 some countries, Israel amongst, believe that it may at some time have been revived. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the United Nations this week but made no mention of the second plant whose existence has now been revealed.