VIENNA, May 26, (Agencies): Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a US security institute said.

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think-tank which tracks Iran’s nuclear programme closely, based the analysis on data in the latest report by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which was issued on Friday.

Progress in Iran’s nuclear activities is closely watched by the West and Israel as it could determine how long it could take Tehran to build atomic bombs, if it decided to do so. Iran denies any plan to and says its aims are entirely peaceful.

During talks in Baghdad this week, six world powers failed to convince Iran to scale back its uranium enrichment programme. They will meet again in Moscow next month to try to defuse a decade-old standoff that has raised fears of a new war in the Middle East that could disrupt oil supplies.

Friday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based UN body, showed Iran was pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment work in defiance of UN resolutions calling on it to suspend the activity.

It said Iran had produced almost 6.2 tonnes of uranium enriched to a level of 3.5 percent since it began the work in 2007 — some of which has subsequently been further processed into higher-grade material.
This is nearly 750 kg more than in the previous IAEA report issued in February, and ISIS said Iran’s monthly production had risen by roughly a third.

“This total amount of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium hexafluoride, if further enriched to weapon grade, is enough to make over five nuclear weapons,” ISIS said in its analysis.

It added, however, that some of Iran’s higher-grade uranium had been converted into reactor fuel and would not be available for nuclear weapons, at least not quickly.

Friday’s IAEA report also said environmental samples taken in February at Iran’s Fordow facility — buried deep beneath rock and soil to protect it from air strikes — showed the presence of particles with enrichment levels of up to 27 percent.

Downplayed
Iran on Saturday downplayed a report by the UN atomic watchdog that uranium traces have been detected of a higher grade than any found before, as local media voiced doubts about the next round of talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Higher-than-expected traces of enriched uranium “are a normal technical issue that is being investigated by (IAEA) experts,” Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh was quoted as telling the official IRNA news agency.
The agency report said that the traces found at the Fordo site, inside a mountain bunker near Qom, were of uranium enriched to purities of 27 percent. Previously, the highest level recorded by the agency in Iran was 20 percent.
The West fears that Iran could be covertly aiming to enrich uranium towards the 90 percent needed to develop atomic bombs, a claim Tehran vehemently denies.
“Addressing technical and trivial issues, which also occur in the nuclear facilities of other nations, show media reports are seeking political goals,” Soltaneih said.
“Highlighting and politicising a technical issue is a sign of efforts to damage the atmosphere of constructive cooperation between Iran and the agency,” added the envoy.
Iran’s atomic chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani said on Saturday Tehran is “not yet convinced” it should open to scrutiny the Parchin military site which is among the concerns of the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
“Visiting Parchin is interesting to the agency because some nations are pressuring it to investigate, but we are not yet convinced in this regard and no proof or documents have been given to us about Parchin which is a military complex,” the ISNA news agency quoted Abbasi Davani as saying.
“We do not have a nuclear site in Parchin. They want to see Parchin and if there were to be such a visit we have to be convinced that this place is among the places which should be visited,” he added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report, published on Friday, said satellite imagery showed “extensive activity” at Parchin, which it said could hamper the investigation of claims of suspected nuclear weapons research there.

Bahrain
Bahrain will stop broadcasting its channels on satellite operator Arabsat to protest an Iran-led “hostile” media campaign, the state news agency BNA reported on Saturday.
“The Information Affairs Authority (IAA) decided to stop broadcasting Bahrain bouquet on Arabsat, starting from June 1,” BNA said quoting an English language statement.
IAA criticised Arabsat for failing to heed repeated requests “to take an official measure” against Iranian channels which also broadcast on Arabsat.
These channels, it said, were waging a “hostile media campaign” against Bahrain and Saudi Arabia “to incite sectarianism and shake security and stability,” in the Sunni-ruled kingdoms.
The IAA said it had “repeatedly requested” Arabsat to take measures against Iranian channels since February 2011, when a month-long Shiite-led uprising began in Bahrain against the regime.
“The executive body of Arabsat did not respond to these requests,” said the statement.
In 2009, Saudi-based Arabsat and another Arab satellite operator, Nilesat, briefly stopped broadcasting Arabic-language Iranian channel Al-Alam.
Tensions have escalated between Shiite Iran and its Arab neighbours in the Gulf since a Saudi-led Gulf force rolled into Bahrain in March 2011 to boost the kingdom’s security forces, which then crushed a month-old uprising against the regime.
Iran has repeatedly voiced support for the protests in Bahrain and strongly condemned the deployment of the Saudi-led forces.
Al-Alam and Lebanon’s Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel have provided full coverage of the protests dominated by their Shiite co-religionists.