Struggle looms to build on Iranian nuclear deals

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, 350 km (217 miles) south of Tehran, April 8, 2008.

VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors about to descend on a hitherto secret Iranian nuclear site may score a small victory for non-proliferation, but face a long, hard struggle to achieve full transparency in Tehran's atomic ambitions.

After a seven-year standoff, Iran agreed at talks with six big powers last week to unveil a nuclear site detected by Western spies and to cut stocks of enriched uranium which are potentially useful for making nuclear weapons.

"We hope Iran strikes a new, forthcoming posture. But we're prepared for it not to. Given Iran's years of foot-dragging, obfuscation and just plain deception, it would be naive to expect smooth sailing ahead," said a senior Western diplomat. "This will be a long, hard slog."

The first tests will come later this month, when action is due to carry out the two deals struck near Geneva. A second round of negotiations will also be held when Iran will be pressed for a nuclear freeze and unfettered inspections -- non-starters for the ruling hardliners in Tehran.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei followed up on the Geneva talks by extracting a date of October 25 from Iran for the IAEA to visit the nascent enrichment plant dug inside a mountain near the Shi'ite holy city of Qom.

"This facility will from there onwards be regularly inspected. That is the IAEA's understanding (with Iran)," a senior diplomat close to the IAEA told Reuters afterwards. Inspectors aim to verify the plant's design documentation which Iran is supposed to hand over. They also expect to be able to take environmental swab samples which could turn up any traces of nuclear activity with possible military dimensions.

Iran says it has not brought nuclear materials into the site, which will not run before 2011. Diplomats said building work began in 2006 and Iran notified the IAEA last month only after discovering Western intelligence had breached its secrecy.

The IAEA will "use all its technical tools to detect any current or past activity," the second diplomat said of the site.

Some diplomats questioned the month-long delay until Iran opens the site, fearing it may use this to remove suspicious evidence. "There should be no technical reason to drag this out to October 25," another diplomat close to IAEA said.

Western officials believe the site would have been used to make high-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons had its existence remained secret, rather than the low-enriched variety used for power plants, as Iran now says it will do.

The Qom-area site would be Iran's second enrichment center after the larger Natanz complex, also concealed from the IAEA until Iranian opposition exiles blew the whistle in 2002. Western officials said Iran also agreed in principle at the Geneva talks to send about 80 percent of its current, declared stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France for further processing with technology that Tehran lacks.

FLAWS IN DEAL

The material would then be returned to Tehran, in a form that would not be easily refined to a high -- or weapons-grade -- degree, to replenish dwindling fuel stocks for an old reactor that produces radio-isotopes for cancer care.

Iranian, Russian, French, U.S. and IAEA officials will meet in Vienna on October 19 to flesh out conditions, such as amounts of LEU to be sent out, a timetable, and non-proliferation guarantees governing use of the material.

For world powers, the deal's payoff would be in diminishing Iran's stash of LEU, which has no apparent civilian use since Iran has no operating nuclear power plants -- but is enough to fuel one atomic bomb should Tehran chose to enrich it further.

For Iran, it would preserve medical isotope production, which has been in jeopardy as sanctions bar it from importing nuclear goods.

But the accord appears to be springing early leaks. First Iran denied agreeing to any amount of LEU to be sent abroad or a timetable for the move.

"Expect Iran to play for as much time as it can ... while keeping the focus on this proposal to distract attention from demands for (enrichment) suspension," said a Western official versed in Iran's negotiating tactics.

Then Iran said the Qom-area plant would run an advanced model of centrifuge it has developed without imported parts, which are hard to get due to a U.N. ban on nuclear trade with the country. Analysts say these centrifuges could refine uranium 2-3 times faster than the erratic, 1970s-vintage used in Natanz.

"The non-proliferation benefits (of this deal) will be reduced if Iran increases the rate of LEU production," said Mark Fitzpatrick, non-proliferation fellow at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. "Any final deal here should include limitations on the size of Iran's enrichment program."

ElBaradei was optimistic after his Tehran talks. "We are at a critical moment. I see we are shifting gears, from confrontation into transparency and cooperation," he said.

But the flexibility Iran showed in Geneva weakened world power resolve to seek tougher sanctions by conjuring up the possibility of a broader agreement -- even though Tehran did not give an inch on the core United Nations demands for a suspension of enrichment and full transparency.

"Qom adds to a long list of secret nuclear sites ... about which Iran can defuse international outrage by retroactively 'declaring' what it can no longer conceal and allow them to be subjected to IAEA safeguards," Christopher Ford, a former Bush administration disarmament official, said in a commentary.

World powers and ElBaradei also want Iran to adopt an IAEA protocol authorizing inspectors to roam beyond declared nuclear sites to verify that it has nothing more to hide. Iran refuses, unless sanctions it deems illegal and unjust are rescinded.

And it rejects curbs on enrichment as an infringement on its right to peaceful nuclear energy, while denying access the IAEA says it needs to verify its enrichment drive is solely peaceful.

(Editing by David Stamp)