Iran tells IAEA it is building second enrichment plant

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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the 64th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York. — Reuters

VIENNA, Sept 25 (Reuters): Iran has informed the UN nuclear watchdog agency that it has a second uranium enrichment plant under construction, diplomats told the news agency Friday.
They said the Islamic Republic told the International Atomic Energy Agency of the plant's existence in a letter to IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei earlier this week.
A senior diplomat close to the IAEA said the Iran had told the agency the facility was a pilot, or experimental-level, enrichment site that was not yet in operation.
Iran was previously known to have one enrichment plant, a vast underground hall at Natanz where it has stockpiled low-enriched uranium in a steadily expanding operation with almost 5,000 centrifuge machines.
The Natanz plant is under daily surveillance by IAEA inspectors, but Iran concealed the site and other initial aspects of its enrichment programme from UN non-proliferation inspectors until it was exposed by Iranian exiles in 2002.
Iran is under UN sanctions for refusing to suspend enrichment and failing to clarify suspicions that its nuclear activity is aimed at developing atom bombs, not generating electricity as it says.
AP adds: Iran is under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment. The officials said that Iran revealed the existence of a second enrichment plant in a letter sent Monday to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
It had previously said it was operating only one plant, which is being monitored by the IAEA.
The Islamic Republic insists that it has the right to the activity to generate fuel for what it says will be a nationwide chain of nuclear reactors.
But because enrichment can make both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade uranium, the international community fears Tehran will use the technology to generate the fissile material used on the tip of nuclear warheads.
The revelation further burdens the chances of progress in scheduled October 1 talks between Iran and six world powers.
At that planned meeting - the first in more than a year - the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany will be pressing Iran to scale back on its enrichment activities. But Tehran has declared that it will not bargain on enrichment.
The officials said that the letter 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.
The government officials - one speaking from his European capital outside Vienna, the other a diplomat in Vienna from a country accredited to the IAEA - demanded anonymity Friday because their information was confidential. One said he had seen the letter. The other told the reporter that he had been informed about it by a UN official who had seen it.