Iran plans to increase uranium enrichment pace

VIENNA -- In a defiant move ahead of nuclear talks, Iran has announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Eager to avoid scuttling those negotiations, world powers are keeping their response low key.

Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intentions last week, and the IAEA informed member nations in an internal note The Associated Press saw yesterday.

The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m "centrifuge machines . . . will be used" to populate a new "unit" -- a technical term for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.

It gave no time frame. A senior diplomat familiar with the issue said work had not started, and it would take weeks, if not months, to have the new machines running once technicians started putting them in.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation expert and former senior U.S. State Department official, called the planned upgrade a potential "game-changer."

"If thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able to produce a weapon's worth of fissile material will significantly shorten," said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The planned upgrade could burden international efforts to coax Tehran into scaling back its nuclear activities and cooperating with the agency's attempts to investigate its suspicions of secret weapons work. Talks are tentatively set for next month with a date and venue still open.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program. But suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons.

Defying UN Security Council demands that it halt uranium enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it. Experts say Tehran already has enough enriched uranium to be able to turn it into weapons-grade material for several nuclear weapons.

Iran's plan was condemned by Israel, which sees Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat and has said it would use all means to stop Iran from reaching weapons capability.