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Iran Press: Nuclear Official Comments on History of Iran's Nuclear Activities

Posted on: Sunday, 7 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

Text of report by Iranian newspaper Keyhan on 3 August

Our country's Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs said: "To make amends for some shortcomings, Iran did certain things for the agency, such as carrying out the terms of the additional protocol while it was yet to be approved in Majles, which were unprecedented in the entire history of this organization's activity. But today, there is no need to continue this matter and we should take a different approach." Dr Mohammad Sa'idi, the deputy of our country's Atomic Energy Organization for international affairs, who was speaking at the conference of "Iran's nuclear technology, the symbol of national will," at the beginning of his speech raised the questions: What happened in our dear country in the nuclear domain? What will our approach be to this matter in the future? And What is our responsibility in order to keep this technology?

He added: "In the story of nuclear technology, we had three phases to deal with. The first phase was the period of doing research on this project, which started before the Islamic revolution and continued after that. But until the 70s [ 1990s], we were not able to change it into other fields." Sa'idi continued: "After the eight-year imposed war [Iran-Iraq War], the country decided to complete these research works into an actual form. And in the early 70s [early 1990s], we made a lot of effort to establish connections with the owners of this technology, so that we could transfer this technology to our country." Noting that China and Russia were among these countries, the Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs pointed out some of our country's contracts with these two countries and said: "The country of China in the very beginning of the process refused to continue its cooperation with us with regard to nuclear fuel and the construction of two 300-megawatt nuclear reactors, and both of these projects came to a halt as a result of America's pressures." Sa'idi continued: "The only thing that was actually done with Russia was a 1000-megawatt, light-water reactor in Bushehr, the construction of which started in year 1995 and has continued until today; and in spite of thousands of difficulties that we had with the Russians, we showed a great deal of patience and tolerance from ourselves until this project was completed." He asserted: "The turbulence we have been facing over the years, meaning the numerous problems on the one hand and the lack of attention to the technological organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the other hand, finally brought us to the conclusion that we needed to consider some kind of revision with regard to the past and our internal issues."

Sa'idi also said: "Exactly at a time when there was a lot of tension dominating the country's political arena and while all eyes were focused on internal developments, a team without paying any attention to those affairs and with a realistic vision and after conducting surveys to evaluate possibilities found out that there was an enormous potential capacity concealed inside the country, which needed to be activated and pushed forward." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs, while noting that at the present time Iran's progress in the Bushehr project was 81 per cent, stated: "At the present time, along with the remarkable progress in this project, we have 700 experts to run a heavy-water power plant, and these people are very invaluable forces and great assets to the country." He explained: "Along with these activities, we have also started research works on light-water power plants, so that we could both design and build these power plants ourselves." He added: "At the present time, we are able to design and produce 50 to 60 per cent of the accessory equipments of a light-water power plant inside the country, and we are sure that we can make the generator in the Bushehr power plant's unit 3 and the turbine in Unit 4, and we can design and build the whole reactor ourselves in Unit 5." Sa'idi continued: "Another thing that happened in this field was the fuel production issue. The matter of providing and guaranteeing fuel supplies for our nuclear power plants has always been one of our concerns. In this relation, we could have sufficed to the help of foreign countries such as Russia, in which case the Russians would have been able to deprive us from this plan whenever they wanted to. Anyway, we thought that we should create some minimums of our own, so that in such cases we would be able to quickly provide the fuel we need."

The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs also stated: "At the beginning of this path, the number of people inside the Atomic Energy Organization itself who approved of our idea hardly exceeded 10, and out of the organization, there was virtually no one who believed we could actually take steps towards nuclear fuel production at all." He said: "Later in the process, we had to design one project twice. One was the Esfahan uranium conversion project, in which AUC was processed into UF6, and the next phase that we had to follow was the enrichment process." Sa'idi then gave a brief account on the history of the Esfahan UCF facility's activities for the attendants in this conference and said: "We were moving forward in a dark atmosphere and there was a very high chance that we wouldn't succeed. But anyway, the work was started in year 79 [ 2000-01], and with God's help, all three phases were completed with success and the project that would have taken 11 years for the Chinese to complete was finished by the end of year 82 [March 2004]."

The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs continued: "Along with this project, we also started the enrichment project which was much darker and more obscure to us than the UCF path was, because in the previous project, at least we had one per cent of the picture, but in this one, we had no idea at all." He added: "Only at some point, we had managed to buy some centrifuge machines on the free market, but due to some mistakes in calculations, these machines would blow up on the 12,000th spin." Sa'idi explained: "At this stage, we had to carry on our activity in a closed manner, because if we had chosen to act openly at this point, we would have been forced to close down the project in a very preliminary stage." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs noted that he was going to complain about something in his next sentence and then said: "Some people believe that we committed a breach with regard to the enrichment issue and failed to report our facilities to the agency at its proper time. This matter is absolutely wrong and is a lie. Before carrying out the additional protocol, we were responsible to notify the agency 180 days prior to the transfer of nuclear materials to our facilities. But at that time, the Natanz facility had basically not reached that stage."

The deputy of our country's Atomic Energy Organization for international affairs continued: "Our only facility that had reached that stage at the time was the UCF [uranium conversion facility] facility in Esfahan, which we did report to the agency in the early stages of its construction and nine months before putting it into operation." Sa'idi said: "At that time, the General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei, and his deputy Goldschmidt came to Esfahan to visit the project." Goldschmidt took me to a corner and said: "Are you sure that you are able to put such a huge project into operation within a few years?" And I answered that we were not sure but hopeful. A few years later when this Mr Goldshmidt came back to Esfahan, he admitted to me that at that point, he never even imagined that we could complete the project in four years, and then he said congratulations to us.

He underscored that the Islamic Republic of Iran had not committed any breach in the enrichment sector and there was no mention of this matter in any report. He said: "The issue that exists is related to some failures in our research works, and these cases are just failures, not breaches. At the present time, many of the IAEA member states have lots of these cases which are under investigation in the agency." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs added: "We must not be intimidated by what is imposed and dictated from the outside. As far as the enrichment issue is concerned, our country only due to certain limitations has had some shortcomings, which are admitted and of course have been atoned for." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs continued: "In order to make amends for these shortcomings, we accepted to do certain things for the agency that were unprecedented throughout the history of its activity. I mean a country whose parliament had not yet approved the additional protocol actually carried out certain things beyond it. But today, there is no need to continue this matter anymore and we should take a different approach."

Sa'idi also asserted: "Another issue that we had in the enrichment process was that for a period of a year and a half or two, we increased the speed of the centrifuge machines and we had problems brining these machines to their highest spinning level. But after working round the clock for two years, one night at 10 p.m., for the first time we succeeded to bring the speed of a centrifuge machine up to 60,000 spins." Sa'idi added: "As of today, I should tell you that making centrifuge machines and increasing their speed up to 60,000 spins for us is just as easy as making Paykans [an automobile long manufactured in Iran]. And even if other countries wanted to develop nuclear technology in UCF and enrichment for peaceful purposes, we would be able to cooperate with them." Noting that Iran's nuclear activities were still in suspension for the time being, he said: "Before the suspension, the capacity of our activities was on the level of tons. And now, if the suspension is lifted, we are ready to start our activity in UF6 production and enrichment with full capacity."

Sa'idi, while explaining some of the technical features of light- and heavy-water reactors, said: "At the present time, the thickness of our heavy water is 20 per cent, which will reach up to 98 per cent in the next nine months and we won't have any problems in this regard." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs said: "In this sector, we do not need any help from foreign countries and the Europeans are now well aware of this matter." He continued: "One of the proposals offered by the British is that they want us to give up our heavy-water research reactor in return for a 40-megawatt light-water research reactor. This is an exceptional proposal and of course we didn't accept it, because we knew in that case we will need them for the heavy-water fuel." He asserted that the dark and gloomy image of the past was now quite clear, and said: "These are developments that have taken place with this country's faith and self-confidence. None of them were done under the supervision of foreigners and all of them have been fully accomplished with reliance on internal forces." The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs continued: "Here I would like to make a criticism of Dr Larijani's remarks where he said our universities were weak. In my opinion, it was our universities' ability in research matters that has brought us to this point. Of course, should not become too proud and we are just in the beginning of the way." He pointed out the Atomic Energy Organization's programmes after building the 40-megawatt heavy- water research reactor and the appointment of a team to design heavy- water power plants, and said: "There is no obstacle in this way and the development of heavy-water power plants with capacities of 110 and 112 megawatts, along with light-water reactors, is in the organization's programmes." Sa'idi affirmed that our country had reached self-sufficiency in the CIVIF section of nuclear power plants and said that 90 per cent of Bushehr's activities in this field were done by ourselves.

The Atomic Energy Organization's deputy for international affairs said: "The vast majority of our nation decisively supports this national case." He considered this kind of support for a case to be unprecedented in the country's history and said: "It is the responsibility of all of us and especially the country's diplomatic apparatus to carefully preserve this precious pearl." At the end, he noted that one of the problems in the beginning was to make some of our dear countrymen believe that we had actually achieved this ability in the country, and said: "At any rate, today even these friends insist on safeguarding this accomplishment of the nation."

Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

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