Nasser Karimi

Iran: Enriched uranium traces a ‘technical issue’

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TEHRAN,Iran (AP) — A top Iranian nuclear negotiator said traces of enriched uranium discovered at an underground bunker came from a “routine technical issue,” the country’s official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Tehran’s envoy to the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, was responding to a report by the nuclear watchdog in which it said it had found radioactive traces at an Iranian site.

The uranium found was at level that is slightly closer to the threshold needed to arm nuclear missiles than Iran’s previous highest-known enrichment grade.

The IAEA said Friday in the report that it was asking Tehran for a full explanation about the traces. But the report was careful to avoid any suggestion that Iran was intentionally increasing the level of its uranium enrichment.

Iran said the find was a technical glitch, according to the report. Analysts and diplomats said Iran’s version sounded plausible.

Soltanieh said the issue was blown out of proportion for political reasons.

“This issue shows that some intend to damage the existing constructive cooperation between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he was quoted as saying.

The West suspects Iran is pursuing a weapons program. Tehran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is aimed at peaceful purposes like power generation and cancer treatment.

UN nuclear chief in Iran on key mission

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UN nuclear chief in Iran on key missionInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano, left, talks with reporters during a news briefing at the conclusion of his meeting with Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, right, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, 21, 2012. The head of the U.N. nuclear agency arrived Monday in Tehran on a key mission that could lead to the resumption of probes by the watchdog on whether Iran has secretly worked on an atomic weapon. It would also strength the Islamic Republic's negotiating hand in crucial nuclear talks with six world powers later this week in Baghdad. (AP Photo/IRNA,Adel Pazzyar)(Credit: AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The head of the U.N nuclear watchdog, in Tehran on a key mission that could lead to the resumption of probes on whether Iran has secretly worked on a nuclear weapon, said Monday that he met with Iranian leaders amid a “good atmosphere.”

The one-day visit by Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency — his first since becoming the IAEA chief in 2009 — is focused on getting Iran to agree to terms that will allow IAEA inspections of suspect Iranian sites, including the Parchin military complex where the agency had reported suspicious activities in the past.

Tehran denies having worked on atomic weapons, saying that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It says Parchin is only a conventional weapons site.

Amano said the two sides discussed “various issues including nuclear disarmament, peaceful use of nuclear energy and future actions. … Some work remains to be done but it will not block achievements in the talks,” he was quoted as saying by Iranian state television, without elaboration.

Neither side made mention of Parchin in remarks to the press after the meeting, keeping their statements general.

Top Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili said that he had “good talks with Amano in this regards and, God willing, we will have good cooperation.”

Inspecting Parchin, southeast of the capital Tehran, was a key request made by senior IAEA teams that visited Tehran in January and February. Iran rebuffed those demands at the time.

But with both Iran and the IAEA reporting progress in a previous round of talks last week, anticipation ahead of the visit was high. While expressing some optimism, Amano said he could not predict whether he would clinch a deal that would allow his agency to renew its long-stalled probe.

Amano’s trip is significant both for what it can achieve in terms of probing Iran’s secretive nuclear program and as a mood-setter for talks Wednesday in Baghdad between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Amano said the IAEA’s contacts will “definitely have a positive impact” on the Baghdad talks. “These are two separate issues but they can improve each other.”

The six world powers are at the forefront of trying to persuade Tehran to curb its nuclear program and ease concerns it wants to use it to make nuclear weapons. For its part, Iran will seek to stay looming U.S. and European Union sanctions on its oil exports at the Baghdad talks.

The six will attempt to get Iran to commit to stop enriching uranium to a level that can be turned quickly into the fissile core of nuclear warheads, while ignoring — for now— its program of lower enrichment, which would take longer to turn toward weapons-making.

Iran insists it is enriching uranium only to produce nuclear fuel and for cancer treatment. It denies that it worked secretly on developing components of a nuclear arms program.

Jalili arrived in Baghdad later Monday, where he will head the Iranian team that is negotiating with the six countries. He was welcomed by Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

Parchin is especially significant since the IAEA believes Iran in 2003 ran explosive tests needed to set off a nuclear charge. The suspected blasts took place inside a pressure chamber. Iran has never said whether the chamber existed.

As Amano arrived, Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahtpisheh told The Associated Press that Tehran will likely accept more inspections of Parchin “if it feels there is good will within the (IAEA) agency.”

But Falahtpisheh, a member of the influential parliamentary committee of national security and foreign policy, warned that this new openness will likely come with expectations that the West would in return ease international sanctions on Iran.

“In opening up to more inspections, Iran aims at lowering the crisis over its nuclear case,” said Falahtpisheh. “But if the sanctions continue, Iran would stop this.”

A political analyst in Tehran, Hamid Reza Shokouhi, said Iran is carefully watching to see if the West shows more “flexibility and pays attention to Iranian demands” during Amano’s trip.

“Then Iran will show flexibility, too,” said Shokouhi.

Both sides appeared to be doing their best to dispel tension that had built up between Tehran and the agency in the past. Amano expressed regret for the assassination of four Iranian nuclear experts over the past two years and said, “I will do my best to protect classified information” of IAEA member countries.

Iran blames the killings on Western and Israeli intelligence and has in the past accused the agency of leaking information on its nuclear program as well as its nuclear scientists. The IAEA denies this.

Jalili meanwhile praised the IAEA for what it said was its work “opposing false claims of the U.S. in Iraq” regarding Baghdad’s alleged possession of weapon of mass destruction prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Amano also met Fereidoun Abbasi, head of Iran’s nuclear agency, as well as Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi during his visit.

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Associated Press Writer George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.

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Reports: IAEA inspector killed in Iran car crash

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A U.N. nuclear inspector from South Korea was killed Tuesday and a colleague was injured in a car crash near a reactor site in central Iran, news reports said.

There were no immediate indications of foul play. But the crash is likely to undergo intense scrutiny.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the International Atomic Energy Agency inspector died when the car overturned around a heavy water reactor being built in Khondab, about 150 miles (250 kilometers) southwest of Tehran.

Iran says the reactor — part of the Arak complex — will be used to produce isotopes for peaceful medical and industrial uses. But the U.S. and others fear that spent fuel from the reactors could be reprocessed into plutonium for a warhead. Iran denies it seeks nuclear weapons.

IRNA identified the fatally injured inspector as Seo Ok-Seok. The semiofficial news agency ISNA says another inspector from Slovakia was injured in the crash and taken to a hospital.

The Vienna-based IAEA had no immediate comment on the reports.

The incident comes ahead of a new round of technical discussions between Tehran and the IAEA to be held in Vienna beginning Sunday. Higher-level negotiations also are planned later this month in Baghdad between envoys from Iran and six world powers including the United States.

Inspectors from the U.N nuclear watchdog regularly visit Iran’s nuclear facilities, which include a Russian-built energy reactor and uranium enrichment laboratories.

The stops often receive far less attention than the high-level IAEA teams sent to Iran to discuss access to other sites, such as the Parchin military base near Tehran where the U.N. suspects nuclear-related work has taken place. Iran says Parchin is a conventional military base.

Iran’s nuclear agency issue a statement offering condolences to the nuclear watchdog as well as the victim’s family

With some 26,000 casualties a year, Iran has one the highest per capital road deaths. It is blamed on disregard of traffic rules, lack of safety of the roads as well as inadequate emergency services.

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Associated Press writer George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.

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Ahmadinejad’s rivals ahead in parliamentary runoff

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Ahmadinejad's rivals ahead in parliamentary runoffAn Iranian woman casts her ballot for the parliamentary runoff elections, in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, May 4, 2012. The country has begun runoff elections for more than one-fifth of parliamentary seats. Friday's report says 130 hopefuls will compete for 65 seats in 33 constituencies including the capital Tehran with 25 undecided seats. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)(Credit: AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Early returns in Iran’s parliamentary runoff elections show conservative rivals of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ahead in many constituencies.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency says the president’s rivals appear to be winning most of the 65 seats that were up for grabs in the second round held Friday.

The runoff was expected to cement the victory of Ahmadinejad’s opponents, who already won an outright majority in the 290-member legislature in the first round of voting in March.

However, results from several polling stations in the capital Tehran show supporters and opponents of Ahmadinejad in a neck to neck race.

Official results are expected on Saturday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians lined up at polling stations Friday for a second round of parliamentary elections seen by the country’s leaders as endorsement of their controversial nuclear program, state media reported.

Conservative opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have already won an outright majority of parliament seats in the first round of elections held in March. Only 65 seats in the 290-member legislature were up for grabs Friday and the outcome is expected to cement the victory of Ahmadinejad’s opponents.

Throughout the day, state TV reported that across Tehran, polling stations were packed with people voting for 25 of the capital’s 30 seats in the parliament. The other five were decided in the first round.

Ahmadinejad and his wife, Aazam Farahi, cast their ballots in the afternoon without making any remarks to waiting reporters, an unusually glum appearance for the normally talkative president.

Ahmadinejad was voted in for a second term in 2009 in a hotly disputed election with the backing of the clerical establishment. But he has seen his political fortunes decline sharply after he was perceived to have defied Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in April 2011 and tried to expand the authority of the presidency.

Polls closed at 9 p.m., after a three-hour extension to accommodate late voters, state TV said. Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said results would be announced Saturday; the official IRNA news agency said early returns were expected later Friday.

The new parliament will begin its session in late May. It has no direct control over major policy matters like Iran’s nuclear program, but it can influence the selection of Ahmadinejad’s successor and other top officials and give backing to the policies of Khamenei.

Iranian leaders have showcased the voter turnout — officially, 64 percent in the first round — as a sign of trust in the clerical-led system and rejection of Western pressure over the nuclear issue.

The West suspects Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is demanding that Iran stop uranium enrichment. Iran has refused, saying its program is aimed at power generation and cancer treatment.

“My advice is that people take the runoff as seriously as the first round,” Khamenei said in comments carried live by state television after he cast his vote.

Iran and world powers held a round of talks in April in Istanbul, the first in a year. Little progress was made beyond agreement to resume the discussions in Baghdad later this month. Iran has said it will ask the West to end or ease its sanctions, but Western nations have already rejected that.

A high voter turnout would boost Iranian negotiators ahead of the talks in Baghdad, according to Ali Reza Khamesian, a political analyst in Tehran.

“Iran’s leaders want to announce to the world that they have huge support from the people, and a high turnout will serve this,” Khamesian said.

Of the 130 candidates, two for each of the 65 seats, 69 are conservative opponents of Ahmadinejad, about 26 favor the president and the rest are centrists. Although Ahmadinejad is likely to serve until the end of his term in August 2013, his allies have been pushed out of key posts and his political clout has been weakened.

This will sour what’s left of his term in office, said Hamid Reza Shokouhi, also an analyst in Tehran. “Within the remaining time left for Ahmadinejad, there will be a lot of confrontation between his administration and the new parliament,” he said.

Some of the voters said they were voting over economic issues. Several rounds of U.N. sanctions over the nuclear issue have hit Iran hard, contributing to double-digit inflation and unemployment.

“In the first round I voted for those who resisted the inflation-creating policy of Ahmadinejad’s administration,” said Reza Behjatpour, a 20-year-old university student.

Laborer Morteza Riahei, 30, said he voted for those that will create more jobs. “Ahmadinejad could not bring more jobs. We need some people in the parliament to push him in a right direction,” he said.

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Report: Iran unplugs oil facilities from Internet

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The Iranian oil ministry’s computer network came under attack from hackers and a computer virus, prompting the Islamic Republic to disconnect the country’s main oil export terminal from the Internet as a preventative measure, a semiofficial news agency reported on Monday.

Mehr said the Sunday cyberattack affected some data, but the ministry had backed it up. It said oil operations were otherwise unaffected.

But the Kharg Island oil terminal, the ministry headquarters, and other facilities were all taken offline, the agency quoted Hamdollah Mohammadnejad, deputy oil minister in charge of civil defense, as saying. Some 80 percent of Iran’s daily 2.2 million barrels of crude export goes through the Kharg facility, located off its southern coast.

The Islamic Republic says that it is involved in a long-running technological war with the United States and Israel.

Iran periodically reports cyberattacks to its nuclear and industrial sectors, almost always saying that little damage was caused. In 2010, Iran reported that a nuclear plant had been targeted by the Stuxnet virus. It denied reports that uranium centrifuge operations had been disrupted, saying that damage was confined to nuclear plant personnel’s laptops.

Iran has reported other cyberattacks since, including an infection in April 2011 dubbed “Stars” and a spy virus about which little is known but its name, “Doku.”

Earlier this year, head of Iran’s civil defense agency Gholam Reza Jalali said the energy sector of the country has been a main target of cyberattacks over the past two years.

Iran has recently announced a series of cyberdefense measures spearheaded by the Revolutionary Guards — a unit which already runs every key military program in Iran and many industries.

In March, the Guard set up what it claims is a hack-proof communications network for its high-level commanders.

Ultimately, Iran says it wants to set up a completely indigenous Internet that is also aimed at checking a “cultural invasion” by enemies aimed at promoting dissent and undermining the ruling system.

Iran is at odds with Israel and the West over its controversial nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies accuse Tehran of wanting to develop weapons technology. Iran denies the claims, saying its program is for peaceful purposes.

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Ahead of nuclear talks, Iran floats compromise

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Ahead of nuclear talks, Iran floats compromiseFILE- In this April, 9, 2007, file photo Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks at a ceremony in Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, 300 kms (186 miles) south of capital Tehran, Iran. Critical nuclear talks between Iran and world powers could begin this week in an atmosphere of impasse.(AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian, File)(Credit: AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s nuclear chief signaled Tehran’s envoys may bring a compromise offer to the talks this week with world powers: Promising to eventually stop producing its most highly enriched uranium, while not totally abandoning its ability to make nuclear fuel.

The proposal outlined late Sunday seeks to directly address one of the potential main issues in the talks scheduled to begin Friday between Iran and the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany.

The U.S. and others have raised serious concerns about Iran’s production and stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which could be turned into weapons-grade strength in a matter of months.

But the proposal described by Iran’s nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, may not go far enough to satisfy the West because it would leave the higher enriched uranium still in Tehran’s hands rather than transferred outside the country.

Abbasi said Tehran could stop its production of 20 percent enriched uranium needed for a research reactor, and continue enriching uranium to lower levels for power generation.

This could take place once Iran has stockpiled enough of the 20 percent enriched uranium, Abbasi told state TV. The 20 percent enriched material can be used for medical research and treatments.

The enrichment issue lies at the core of the dispute between Iran and the West, which fears Tehran is seeking an atomic weapon — a charge the country denies, insisting its uranium program is for peaceful purposes only.

Uranium has to be enriched to more than 90 percent to be used for a nuclear weapon, but with Iran enriching uranium to 20 percent levels, there are concerns it has come a step closer to nuclear weapons capability.

Abbasi said production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent is not part of the nation’s long-term program — beyond amounts needed for its research reactor in Tehran — and insisted that Iran “doesn’t need” to enrich beyond the 20 percent levels.

“The job is being carried out based on need,” he said. “When the need is met, we will decrease production and it is even possible to completely reverse to only 3.5 percent” enrichment levels.

It was not immediately clear whether Abbasi’s comments reflect what will be Tehran’s official stance when the negotiations begin in Istanbul more than 14 months after the last round collapsed.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted on the Iranian parliament’s website on Monday as saying he hopes for some progress in the upcoming talks but warned Iran would not accept any preconditions.

“We will honestly try to have the two sides conclude with a win-win situation in which Iran achieves its rights while removing concerns of five-plus-one group,” he said. “But imposing any conditions before the talks would be meaningless.”

Iran insists it has full rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty to enrich uranium to create nuclear fuel and says it only seeks enrichment levels to power reactors, but the U.S. and others worry that the same process can be used to make weapons-grade material.

Ahead of Istanbul, there are signs Tehran is confident it may have beaten back the toughest Western demands for a complete halt to uranium enrichment and that some bargaining room has now been opened for new proposals.

Abbasi’s remarks follow a bravado last week from Iranian lawmaker Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam, who claimed Tehran has the know-how and the capability to produce a nuclear weapon but would never do so.

Moghadam also said that Iran has the means to produce 90-plus percent enrichment, though he did not elaborate

After a protracted flap over the venue for the talks, Iranian state TV reported Sunday that both sides had agreed on Istanbul. It said a second round would be held in Baghdad but that its timing would be decided during the meeting in Turkey.

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