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Iran's Growing Stockpile

(Foreign Policy) Olli Heinonen - Iran's uranium enrichment capacities, in both the Fordow and the Natanz plants, are increasing. To date, the two facilities have produced 6 tons of UF6 enriched to 3.5% - five times the amount foreseen for the first fuel swap deal for the Tehran Research Reactor in fall 2009, and an amount sufficient for five nuclear weapons, if further enriched. The monthly production of 3.5% UF6 at Natanz has increased from 170 kg. in February 2012 to 220 kg. 3.5% enriched UF6 today, but this can be attributed to the higher number of centrifuges and not to better performance. Either way, the result by the end of this year could be a cumulative inventory of 7.5 tons of low-enriched UF6 - enough for half a dozen nuclear weapons. Iran's increasing enrichment capacity, together with information it reportedly has on a crude design of a nuclear weapon, show that Iran is positioning itself as a virtual or latent nuclear weapon state. The writer, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School, was deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
2012-06-01 00:00:00
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