WASHINGTON — Iran appears to be preparing to dramatically scale up its production of enriched uranium, according to a new U.N. report that says Iranian scientists have moved to install advanced equipment at the country’s main nuclear complex.
The report, released Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, also includes fresh evidence that Iran has overcome the damage inflicted to its existing uranium plant by apparent cyberattacks in the past two years. The nuclear watchdog said Iran was boosting its enriched-uranium stockpile at a steady or slightly higher rate compared with production before the attack.
The report sharply criticized Iran for failing to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear agency, which for two years has been stymied in its efforts to investigate alleged nuclear weapons research by Iranian scientists.
The stonewalling has made it impossible to “provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran,” the agency said in its report, a confidential summary of recent findings on Iran prepared for a meeting next month of the IAEA’s board of governors.
Iran’s uranium plant at Natanz uses thousands of machines called centrifuges to make enriched uranium, and until now, it has relied on an older model that uses 1950s technology. But for the first time, Iran has formally notified the IAEA that it will soon introduce two new kinds of centrifuges into its main production line, the report said.
The machines, called IR2s and IR4s, are far more efficient than the IR1s that Iran now uses, said David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
The new machines could allow Iran not only to enrich more uranium faster but also to operate smaller uranium facilities that might be easier to hide from satellites and spies, he said.
