"Russia has technological solutions for uranium depletion and is ready to work with Iran in this field," Lavrov said in remarks published by Iran’s state-controlled media. "We have technological capacities and we are ready to offer them, taking the excess of overly enriched uranium and returning the power-generation-grade uranium to the Islamic Republic and its nuclear facilities."
I understand that to be offering to take the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) remaining in Iran off their hands, and trading it for uranium that is a better fit for the power generation the Iranians claim to want.* That would be unsuitable for weapons production, and put Iran on a more plausible path towards having nuclear power but not a weapons program.
Getting Iran's remaining stockpiles of HEU out of Iran's hands is helpful. Russia is already a nuclear power, so this wouldn't be a risk for proliferation. As long as Iran didn't set up its enrichment centrifuges again, everyone could relax if they gave up their HEU for reactor-grade material.
* The distinction has to do with the isotopes found in the Uranium, 238 versus 235. An unnaturally high purity of U-235 is necessary to build nuclear weapons. You only need about 20% for power generation, 95% for weapons. Thus, the comment about 'overly enriched uranium' strikes me as one about getting rid of the stuff they've been working on for the weapons program.
3 comments:
It depends on the power being generated. Taking whatever is left of Iran's HEU--60% purity--and returning 90+% enriched uranium will let the Iranians generate and deliver quite a lot of power, in accordance with Rafsanjani's prior goal, never repudiated.
Lavrov is, after all, a Russian government official. Hinting at returning re-depleted uranium is more smokescreen than veiled threat.
The only serious way to guarantee an end to Iran's nuclear weapons program is to ship the HEU to a Western nation (France comes to mind) and for a Western nation (not necessarily still France) to do 100% of uranium enrichment to power generation levels (20% is on the high end of that), and for no-notice inspections of any place inspectors take a notion to inspect, with zero interference by the Iranians. The inspectors also need to be empowered to destroy, on the spot, any enrichment facility they encounter and to seize and ship out any uranium they encounter that's been enriched above the purity needed for electricity generation. More inspection teams than just the IAEA need to be involved, too.
Of course, the current Iran government personages will never agree to that, so the lack of guarantees needs to be handled, also.
Eric Hines
Yes, given your distrust of Russia I can understand that you would reject them as an intermediary. The idea of trading HEU for lower-enriched uranium isn't bad, though, right? You'd be OK with that as long as a trusted ally (you mention France, which, if you say so) was doing the thing Russia is offering to do?
Certainly (but see below). What's necessary is the denial to Iran of any capability of enriching uranium beyond what's necessary for electricity generation.
I'd argue further that Iran has no need of nuclear power at all for electricity generation given its direct access to oil and natural gas, which even in an unregulated environment would be cheaper at producing electricity than uranium, but that's a different tale.
I wouldn't, and don't here, consider France a trusted ally, beyond that aspect of trust that suggests its behavior can be reliably predicted. France does, though, share a deep distrust of Iran and uranium.
Eric Hines
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