Iran Maintaining Nuclear Flexibility, Clapper Says

NTI: Global Security Newswire, Iran has kept available the possibility of pursuing a nuclear deterrent, but the United States remains uncertain whether its longtime foe would ultimately do so, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper told lawmakers yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 9).

The Middle Eastern nation has maintained flexibility on whether to establish a nuclear arsenal "by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons," Clapper said in testimony before the House of Representatives intelligence panel. Iran has maintained its atomic ambitions have no military component (Reuters, Feb. 10).

Meanwhile, an Iranian diplomat on Wednesday said his country was ready to hold new talks with three world powers on a potential exchange of stockpiled uranium for medical reactor fuel, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.

"Iran is ready and willing to continue negotiations. Iran answered the questions of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), so there is no point in continuing anti-Iran sanctions," Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi said (see GSN, Jan. 28).

"Western countries want to play the game and turn the talks into a political tool against Iran. I think the [P-5+1] must decide what they want to discuss with Iran and work out on a united policy," he said, referring to the six global powers negotiating with Tehran over its atomic activities. Two sets of talks in recent months have failed to make progress on the uranium exchange or the broader standoff over Iran's nuclear activities.

Under a 2009 bid put forward by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran would have exchanged 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for material to fuel a medical isotope production reactor in Tehran. The Middle Eastern state ultimately rejected the plan worked out with France, Russia and the United States, which was aimed in part at deferring Iran's ability to produce sufficient weapon material for a bomb long enough to more fully address U.S. and European concerns about Iranian enrichment activities.

The U.N. Security Council to date has adopted four sanctions resolutions aimed at pressuring Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. The enrichment process can generate nuclear-weapon material, but Tehran has insisted it would only harness its program to produce fuel for civilian applications (Fars News Agency, Feb. 10).

Elsewhere, Iran yesterday announced it had reached a milestone in the development of nuclear fusion technology, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, July 22, 2010).

"By the method of inertial confinement lasers, significant research has been successfully conducted in the field of nuclear fusion," the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said in a statement.

"A machine to make nuclear fusion laser was manufactured by the faculty of science and technology at the" organization, the statement adds.

"With the manufacture of this machine ... Iran becomes the sixth country to master this technology," following Australia, France, Japan, South Korea and the United States, the group said.

It was unclear whether Iran had conducted a test of the device.

Although the nuclear fusion process takes place during hydrogen bomb detonation, no sustained fusion reaction capable of power production has been achieved to date (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Feb. 10).