Washington to call for sanctions against Iran in January.
Iran needs to build 20 uranium enrichment plants to provide enough nuclear fuel for its nuclear power stations, the vice president and nuclear chief of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said last weekend. Western observers say these plans will increase tensions in relations between Teheran and the international community. Our experts have suggested that Salehi's statement indicates the growing influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) which presses for more public spending.
"To provide our nuclear power plants with fuel we must have 20 uranium plants," the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization and Vice President of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on Saturday. Less than a week before that statement, Teheran declared it would build 10 enrichment plants similar to the first uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Iran has no operating nuclear plants at present. The first nuclear power plant in Bushehr has been under construction for about 30 years. Russian specialists have not yet finished the start-up and tuning work. The Bushehr nuclear plant has enough nuclear fuel to fully load the reactor.
The plans to build 10 enrichment plants announced by Teheran on November 29 met with a mixed reaction in the expert community. Russia, which has about 40% of the world enrichment capacity, has four plants. Now the Iranians are talking about 20 plants. Why do they need so many?
Nina Mamedova, chief of the Iranian department at the RAS Oriental Studies Institute, said in an interview with NG that the construction of plants is now supervised by the IRGC. The IRGC is strengthening its position in running the country. If the plans to build additional enrichment facilities go ahead, the Corps stands to gain from it economically. Most probably the expansion of the nuclear programme will turn out to be ineffective, but the process of large-scale construction that calls for major financial outlays is a blessing for the Iranian military elite. "Iran has a large reserve fund which can be used to replenish the budget under the law. Perhaps the IRGC has taken advantage of the crisis situation and is provoking the country's leadership to react," Nina Mamedova said. In addition, the Iranians have a habit of revealing a portion of their plans (as in the case of "building 20 nuclear plants") in order to use them as bargaining chips and, by dropping some of the projects sit down at the negotiating table with the international community.
The expert believes that Teheran will resume negotiations, probably before the year is out. The Iranian leadership is not unanimous in supporting the plans to expand the nuclear programme. Interestingly, even Mr Salehi has stressed that Iran is not planning to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran can hardly develop new offshore oil and gas fields without foreign technologies and capital.
Analysts expect Iran to come up with new proposals to develop its fields, including Southern Pars, before January. If the Iranians manage to attract Russian and not only Chinese companies to the project, "Russia will have something to defend." In the meantime "Russia has no realistic projects in Iran," Nina Mamedova said.
Meanwhile, high-ranking American diplomats, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have discussed Iran with the diplomatic heads of European countries, Associated Press reports. The discussions took place in Athens and Brussels. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in the Belgian capital last week where he met Secretary Clinton.
According to AP, the package of new UN Security Council sanctions has yet to be agreed. But it may include restrictions with regard to the IRGC which the US is already imposing on its own, as well as sanctions against the Iranian oil industry. Washington is looking for an Iranian weak spot on which all the five permanent UN Security Council members would agree to press. Under Secretary of State William J. Burns will discuss Iran with China tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. He will try to persuade Beijing of the need to call another meeting of the "six" on Iran before Christmas, a meeting where the sanctions issue may be raised. China, like no other veto-wielding UN Security Council member, has the largest economic interests in the Islamic Republic.
The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week: "We have no information to the effect that Iran is working to create nuclear weapons." At the same time, RIA Novosti notes that Putin declined to answer the question whether Russia would join the possible sanctions against Iran.
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Russia has no realistic promising projects in the Islamic Republic.
Andrei Terekhov