by News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
British Daily Telegraph reveals that Iran has activated the Arak heavy-water production plant for weapons-grade plutonium • Nuclear talks in Kazakhstan end without breakthrough • Israel: Iran talks about its right to uranium enrichment but in parallel is advancing its weapons program.
This screen shot from the
Daily Telgraph website of a satellite photo, commissioned from Digital
Globe Inc., shows steam rising from the Arak facility.
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Photo credit: Daily Telegraph  |
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Iran has activated the Arak heavy-water
production plant, 150 miles south-west of the capital, Tehran, according
to a report in the British Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
In response to the report, a senior Israeli
official said Iran was pressing ahead with its nuclear program while
"everyone is talking." She was referring to the nuclear talks currently
taking place between world powers and Iran in Kazakhstan.
"As of now, the Iranians are thumbing their
noses," Sima Shine, head of the Iran desk at the Strategic Affairs
Ministry, told Israel's Army Radio. "They are coming to negotiations,
speaking hyperbolically, trying to talk about their right to uranium
enrichment ... but in parallel they are advancing [their nuclear
program]."
According to the Telegraph, images from
earlier this month commissioned by the paper from commercial satellite
operators show "a cloud of steam" emanating from the "heavily guarded
Iranian facility, from which international inspectors have been barred
for 18 months," indicating heavy-water production.
Heavy water is required to operate a nuclear reactor that can produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, have been barred from entering the
facility since August 2011 and Iran has repeatedly refused requests for
information about it.
According to the Telegraph, Western
governments and the IAEA have held information about activity at Arak
for some time, and the images are the "first to put evidence of that
activity into the public domain." The new images, the report said, also
show details of the Fordo complex, which is built hundreds of feet
beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom.
At talks
between Iran and the P5+1 powers in Kazakhstan on Tuesday and
Wednesday, Western leaders offered to ease sanctions imposed on Iran in
exchange for concessions on the Fordo facility, which is heavily
protected from aerial attack. It was not immediately clear what, if
anything, was resolved in during the two days of negotiations, which
ended Wednesday. Iranian state TV reported that technical experts for
each side will meet in Istanbul in coming weeks to discuss the latest
proposals. But any hopes of a significant easing of the deadlock in the
decade-old nuclear dispute were dented when Russian media cited a source
close to the talks as saying there had been no clear progress in the
discussions in Kazakhstan.
"So far there is no particular rapprochement.
There is an impression that the atmosphere is not very good," Interfax
news agency quoted the source as saying.
Israel Radio reported on Tuesday that
officials in Jerusalem were not holding out much hope for results from
the negotiations, but supported the talks because they increased the
pressure on Iran and exhausted all diplomatic options so that other
means can be advanced.
"The striking image of steam over the Arak
heavy-water complex is a vivid demonstration that the regime has more
than one pathway to a potential nuclear weapon," the Telegraph said.
"New images of Arak highlight the progress Iran has made on facilities
that could allow it to produce plutonium, potentially giving the country
a second option in developing a nuclear weapon."
The report said other images of the area
around Arak reveal numerous anti-aircraft missile and artillery
batteries positioned there to protect the plant, "more than are deployed
around any other known nuclear site in the country."
The missile defenses, based on the Telegraph's
analysis of the images, "are most heavily concentrated to the west of
the plant, which would be the most direct line of approach for any
aircraft delivering a long-range strike from Israel."
The Arak complex reportedly comprises two
parts: the heavy-water plant and a nuclear reactor. Unlike the
heavy-water plant, however, the reactor has been opened to IAEA
inspectors. During a visit earlier this month inspectors noted that
cooling and "moderator circuit" pipes at the reactor were "almost
complete," according to the Telegraph.
It said Iran had told the IAEA that it would "begin operating the reactor at Arak in the first three months of 2014."
Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. State
Department official at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies, suggested to the Telegraph that Arak could be part of a process
that "might trigger Western strikes on Iran."
The images commissioned by the Telegraph were analyzed by Stuart Ray of McKenzie Intelligence Services, a consultancy firm.
"The steam indicates that the heavy-water plant is
operational and the extent of the air defense emplacements around the
site makes it suspicious," Ray told the Telegraph.
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=7575
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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