Iran has built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday.
In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought.
They said Iran had accumulated more than one ton of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz.
If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material � enough for a bomb.
"It appears that Iran has walked right up to the threshold of having enough low enriched uranium to provide enough raw material for a single bomb," said Peter Zimmerman, a former chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
The new figures come in a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, released on Thursday. This revealed that Iran's production of low enriched uranium had previously been underestimated.
Iran's success in reaching such a "breakout capacity" - a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months - crosses a "red line" that for years Israel has said it would not accept.
UN officials emphasise that to produce fissile material Iran would have to reconfigure its Natanz plant to produce high enriched uranium rather than low enriched uranium - a highly visible step that would take months - or to shift its stockpile to a clandestine site.
No such sites have been proved to exist, although for decades Iran concealed evidence of its nuclear program.
A senior UN official added that countries usually waited until they had an enriched uranium stockpile sufficient for several bombs before proceeding to develop fissile material. He conceded that Iran now had enough enriched uranium for one bomb.
David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said: "If Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons, it's entering an era in which it could do so quickly."
(Source: The Financial Times)
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=30717
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