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U.S. Backs Russian Plan To Resolve Iran Crisis
A technician works at a uranium-processing plant at Isfahan.
(By Raheb Homavandi -- Reuters)
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"There is still a lot more to investigate here," said Charles D. Ferguson, a nuclear specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The big question is what the Iranians did with the documents. Did they act on this or shelve it away?"
Iran has said it did not receive a warhead design from Khan, as Libya had. U.S. intelligence secretly obtained schematic drawings related to Iran's missile program last year that show efforts to modify a ballistic missile to carry a payload large enough to accommodate a nuclear warhead. But the drawings do not include warhead designs, U.S. officials have said.
Without proof of a weapons program, the Bush administration's main focus has been on preventing Iran from enriching uranium because the process can produce fuel for energy or bombs. Currently Iran is converting uranium -- a process that readies the material for enrichment.
"They have to eliminate the possibility that they'll be engaged in any process, nuclear energy fuel cycle process," R. Nicolas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said two months ago. "Our position is they should shut down all those activities, including uranium conversion."
The Russian deal endorsed by the U.S. administration offers Iran the chance to continue converting uranium, and to retain the right to enrich it, just not on its own soil.
Hadley said it was an interesting idea and he hopes Iran will embrace it: Iran, "while retaining its right to enrichment and reprocessing, would, nonetheless, find it in its interest to give up that right in terms of its own territory."
Robert Einhorn, assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation until November 2001, said the Russian offer takes care of Iranian needs and U.S. concerns. "If you are confident that Iran has no enrichment plant in operation, overtly or covertly, then it doesn't much matter that it can produce" converted uranium.
Staff writer Peter Baker in Pusan, South Korea, contributed to this report.
