IAEA: Update Iran

"Iran continues to enrich uranium, which shows that sanctions are not having any effect.  More importantly, we are seeing them put the final pieces of the jigsaw into place.
"In full contempt of international opinion, the Iranians are racing toward the finishing line and they are now just metres away from it."  International diplomat

The International Atomic Energy Agency's latest quarterly report lays it out.  One thousand new, not yet operational centrifuges were installed at the Fordow facility since May.  That's the secret facility whose existence was unknown outside Iran until it was completely built in the interior of a mountain as a well protected underground uranium enrichment facility, close to the holy city of Qom.  Once word of its existence was revealed, the IAEA became involved.

According to Western diplomats, uranium has been enriched at the Fordow facility, in defiance of Western sanctions, close to weapons grade. According to the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, the Republic has increased stockpiles of high-grade enriched uranium in the past three months alone from 145 kilograms to 190 kilograms.  Additional news, that the country's mastermind of nuclear efforts has been recalled to duty was followed with interest.

As far as some, such as Israel, closely watching events as they proceed are concerned, the recall of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist, and the heavy stockpiling of nuclear-enriched uranium signals that the country has come closer than ever to proceeding with the final touches to build nuclear arms.  Fakhrizadeh has now re-taken charge of a research facility in Tehran that focuses on the building of nuclear weapons.

This determination was relayed to the Wall Street Journal by UN, American and Israeli officials.  The denial of Tehran to permit IAEA inspectors entry to the Parchin military base close to Tehran on suspicion that the facility there was used for military explosions and that the regime has been busy neutralizing the facility of any possible incriminating evidence of nuclear tests having taken place there, simply confirms suspicions.

Diplomats are anticipating that the IAEA report, expected to be circulated confidentially, will confirm that Iran sanitized the Parchin base to the point that an inspection would be useless.  It is strongly believed that tests on how to proceed to detonate a nuclear weapon were carried out at Parchin, even before Fakhrizadeh was recalled from his involuntary 'retirement'.

Despite Israel's increasingly agitated calls for military action, however, it seems clear that no alarm is warranted.  Catherine Ashton, the EU representative for foreign affairs has stated her intention to conduct ongoing talks with Iran's main nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili "in the coming days".  On the other hand, Iran has given its assurance that there is nothing amiss, that it is merely the fevered fantasizing of Israel and the U.S. that is the problem here.

Iran has no intention whatever, has no interest at all in pursuing any but peaceful nuclear research and development.  Did not Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, state as much at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit in Tehran this week?  "Our motto is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none." That's the problem here, there's not enough trust. 

Or delusional naivete.