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Iran Hands Over Stockpile of Enriched Uranium to Russia Iran Hands Over Stockpile of Enriched Uranium to Russia
(34 minutes later)
MOSCOW — Iran on Monday handed over to Russia a stockpile of enriched Iranian uranium that had for years generated tensions in the Middle East and beyond, fulfilling an important step in the nuclear deal struck last summer with world powers. A Russian ship left Iran on Monday carrying almost all of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, fulfilling a major step in the nuclear deal struck last summer and, for the first time in nearly a decade, apparently leaving Iran with too little fuel to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
The transfer of the fuel to Russia means that for the first time since the accord was struck, Iran no longer has the fuel required to create a nuclear weapon — should it want to. Iran has always said its nuclear work is peaceful and the uranium fuel was intended for medical purposes. The shipment was announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and confirmed by a spokesman for Russia’s civilian nuclear company, Rosatom. Mr. Kerry called it “one of the most significant steps Iran has taken toward fulfilling its commitment” and American officials say that it may now be only weeks before the deal reached in July will go into effect.
But the uranium, enriched to about 20 percent purity, posed what world powers regarded as a threat that the Iranian authorities could quickly build a bomb by enriching it further for weapons fuel. On “implementation day” roughly $100 billion in Iranian assets will be unfrozen, and the country will be free to sell oil on world markets and operate in the world financial system.
Ridding Iran of the enriched uranium was one goal of the multistep agreement signed in July between Iran and its major negotiating partners — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — to guarantee that Iran’s nuclear activities remain peaceful. For President Obama, the peaceful removal of the fuel from Iran is one of the biggest achievements in his foreign policy record, the culmination of a seven-year long effort that at various times involved sanctions, cybersabotage of Iran’s main nuclear facility, and repeated Israeli threats to bomb the country’s facilities.
In exchange, Iran has been promised an easing of the onerous economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country for years. Less than a year ago, many inside the Obama administration — and almost all senior officials in Israel, which regards Iran as a dangerous foe — said they doubted Iran would agree to part with a stockpile of fuel that gave it the potential power to build a weapon, even though the Iranians have said that is not their intention.
A Russian ship, the Mikhail Dudin, departed a port in Iran on Monday carrying the uranium, said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, Russia’s civilian nuclear company, in a telephone interview. Mr. Kerry, in a statement, said that the ship, which Russian officials said was the Mikhail Dudin, carried 25,000 pounds of nuclear material. That included, Mr. Kerry said, the fuel that was closest to bomb-grade quality: It had been enriched to 20 percent purity. Iranian officials said that fuel was for a specialty reactor to make medical isotopes, but it was considered a threat because it would require relatively little further enrichment to produce a weapon.
Mr. Novikov said the single shipment fulfilled the requirement between Iran and the other powers under the nuclear agreement. Ridding Iran of the material was a major goal of the multistep agreement to unravel what the United States and international regulators called a military endeavor in the guise of a civilian nuclear program.
Iran still is disassembling centrifuges, which enrich uranium, and disabling a plutonium reactor, among other steps that are required under the nuclear agreement struck in July.
For face-saving purposes, Iran is calling the uranium shipment part of a “fuel swap.” But the fuel it is receiving, partly form Kazakhstan, is natural uranium, which would require substantial processing to be used for either a nuclear reactor or a weapon.
Mr. Kerry’s statement said that with the removal of the fuel, Iran’s “breakout time” — the time needed to produce a weapon — has already moved from two-to-three months to six-to-nine months. Before the deal goes into effect, that time is supposed to extend to a full year.
Iran is permitted to hold 300 kilograms, or about 660 pounds, of low-enriched uranium under the deal. But that is not enough to produce a single weapon.
In a telephone interview, the Rosatom spokesman, Sergei Novikov, said the single shipment fulfilled the requirement between Iran, the United States and five other world powers including Russia to remove Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to this level.
“All that was mentioned in the plan of the six countries has been taken out of Iran,” he said.“All that was mentioned in the plan of the six countries has been taken out of Iran,” he said.
Earlier, a Russian Foreign Ministry official was quoted by the Tass news agency as saying that Iran was shipping 8.5 tons of enriched uranium to Russia. The other fuel that can be used to make a bomb, plutonium, is made by irradiating uranium in a nuclear reactor. The process transforms some of the uranium into plutonium. The agreement requires Iran to shut down a reactor capable of creating plutonium. The Obama administration has said these two requirements close for Iran both paths to becoming a nuclear power.
At least a portion of the material was shipped in drums in a semi-gaseous form, a typical arrangement for transporting uranium, Mr. Novikov said.
Russia will now recycle this Iranian enriched uranium into its civilian nuclear power and research program, Mr. Novikov said.
In exchange for relinquishing the enriched uranium, Iran will receive from Russia a shipment of raw uranium containing an equivalent amount of the isotope U-235 that was present in the enriched uranium, Tass reported.
Russia will ship the raw uranium to Iran in the form of yellow cake, or uranium oxide.
Uranium mined from the earth is less than 1 percent U-235, the isotope that can be used to fuel reactors, in medical treatments and to make bombs.
Centrifuges are needed to separate the U-235 from the rest of the uranium, in a process called enrichment. The agreement reached in July limited Iran to uranium enriched to no more than about 3.6 percent, the level used in a reactor. Some uranium used in research and medicine is enriched to about 20 percent. Bomb grade uranium’s enrichment can exceed 90 percent.
The nuclear agreement requires Iran to deactivate about half of its centrifuges to limit the country’s enrichment capacity.
Iran’s other obligations specified in the agreement have yet to be fulfilled, but the Iranians have said they expect to complete them by early 2016.
The Obama administration, which regards the nuclear deal with Iran as a major achievement, has said it closes the pathways for Iran to become a nuclear-weapons state.
Critics of the agreement — including Israel, which considers Iran one of its most dangerous adversaries — have said the agreement does not go nearly far enough.
The other fuel that can be used to make a bomb, plutonium, is made by irradiating uranium in a nuclear reactor. The agreement requires that Iran shut down its only reactor capable of creating plutonium.