Excerpts from previous status reports, by subject
Removed on November 30, 2007
- Putin visits Iran (October 2007)
- IAEA’s assessment of Iran’s enrichment status in August 2007
- GCC compromise refused by Iran
Putin visits Iran (October 2007)
In advance of his trip to Iran in mid-October 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he saw “no data that suggest that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons…And so we believe that Iran does not have such plans.” And during his historic visit to Iran, for a meeting of the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea, Putin said that any use of force in the Caspian region was unacceptable. He also met on October 17 with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly provided Iran with yet another proposal aimed at diffusing the nuclear crisis.
IAEA’s assessment of Iran’s enrichment status in August 2007
As of late August 2007, the IAEA reported that Iran was enriching uranium in twelve centrifuge cascades (roughly 1,600 machines), was in the final stages of testing 328 centrifuges, and was installing a further 328 centrifuges. The twelve working cascades were operating simultaneously at that time, and had been fed with 690 kilograms of uranium gas since February. Iran claimed to have produced uranium enriched to 4.8 percent U-235, whereas IAEA sampling showed a somewhat lower level of 3.7 percent U-235. Since late August, Iran has pursued centrifuge testing and installation work, and, in early November Iran’s president claimed that the country was operating 3,000 machines at Natanz. This number has long been Iran’s stated short-term goal for the commercial-scale plant, which is intended to hold some 54,000 centrifuges.
GCC compromise refused by Iran
Iran’s determination to pursue enrichment was evident when it rejected yet another compromise proposal, this time from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Under the plan, a multinational consortium would have been set up to provide enriched uranium to Iran and to other users of the material in the Middle East. The uranium enrichment plant would have been established in a neutral country outside the Middle East.