Converting Enriched
Uranium into Reactor Fuel
Iran’s Foreign
Minister Javad Zarif said during an interview on Friday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour
that Iran was ready to convert all its existing and future enriched uranium
into oxide and fuel for its power reactor so the country could never develop nuclear
weapons.
“(The program would
be) geared towards a very specific objective – peaceful energy production,”
Zarif said. “You convert this uranium that you produce into oxide and into
fuel, rather than keep it in a form that can be re-enriched to weapons grade.”
In addition, he
said, Iran will accept “the most serious international inspection regime that
is available legally.”
“We will put in
place an international mechanism in order to make sure that Iran will never
develop nuclear weapons,” Zarif added. (CNN, 17 July)
Based on Zarif’s proposal, Iran will not reduce its enrichment capacity, and could theoritically increase it, but instead will convert all uranium enriched in the process into a form unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Zarif’s new approach is apparently in response to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s recent instructions that Iran must boost its enrichment capacity, and not reduce it as demanded by P5+1.
The P5+1 and Iran yesterday decided to extend their talks for four months after it became apparent that they could not close the gap on the issue of enrichment capacity before the 20 July deadline.
Based on Zarif’s proposal, Iran will not reduce its enrichment capacity, and could theoritically increase it, but instead will convert all uranium enriched in the process into a form unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Zarif’s new approach is apparently in response to Supreme Leader Khamenei’s recent instructions that Iran must boost its enrichment capacity, and not reduce it as demanded by P5+1.
The P5+1 and Iran yesterday decided to extend their talks for four months after it became apparent that they could not close the gap on the issue of enrichment capacity before the 20 July deadline.
If by what Zarif is referring to as an "international mechanism" he means foreign participation in the production of nuclear fuel on Iranian soil, this was actually advanced as a solution during the Ahmadinejad administration and summarily rejected by the West.
ReplyDeleteHis reference was to a tight international inspection regime to confirm the immediate conversion of enriched uranium into oxide/reactor fuel unusable for nuclear weapons.
DeleteSo Ahmadinejad ideas were better for the West, where the main 'author of this blog' with his proxies, have demonized him at every opportunity.
Delete+A
where's the explanation of why Iran needs to increase production of enriched uranium if all of it is to be converted to reactor fuel?
ReplyDeletewhat can iran possibly do with more and more reactor fuel when Iran has but the one reactor and no others under construction?
it takes close to 20 years to a reactor to be built and go into operation.
Anon 7:51
DeleteAkhoond regime want to have a nuclear weapon...they got the idea to get one right after the war with Iraq. For instance... those missile silos were built in the 1990s with nuclear weapons in mind. There can't be any explanation that is acceptable to world powers. How do explain that you intend to whisk away surplus enriched uranium?
AnonymousJuly 19, 2014 at 7:51 PM
DeleteAh,no it doesnt,it takes around 7 years on average for a reactor to be built,the fact that bushehr took so long was due to a variety of factors,one of the biggest being the russians trying to extract more money from iran while at the same time trying to extract political concessions from the west by slowing or halting work on the project,bushehr should have only taken half as long as it did.At the moment irans current number of centrifuges and its enriched stockpile would not even be enough to refuel bushehr,indeed if iran wanted to do this using its current centrifuges it would have to increase their numbers ten fold in order to do this