Uranium

WASHINGTON - In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb. U.S. officials said they might agree to let Iran continue enriching uranium up to 5% purity, which is the upper end of the range for most civilian uses, if its government agrees to the unrestricted inspections, strict oversight and numerous safeguards that the United Nations has long demanded.

WASHINGTON - The United States and five other countries have agreed to offer a joint proposal to Iran at a high-level meeting next week in an effort to open a path for negotiations to curtail Tehran's disputed nuclear program and to ease the threat of war. When they meet in Baghdad on Wednesday, the six powers will offer to help Iran fuel a small reactor used for medical purposes, and to forgo seeking further United Nations economic sanctions....

In an admission that is certain to heighten concerns over Iran's nuclear capabilities, Tehran has informed the United Nations that it has been building a secret uranium enrichment plant, according to a statement released today by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Speaking before the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh, President Obama said the plant is a "direct challenge" to global nonproliferation. He added, "Iran must comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and make clear it is prepared to meet its responsibilities as a member of the community of nations."

TEHRAN - Iranian officials expressed skepticism Saturday about possible Obama administration support for allowing the country to continue enriching some uranium but said it could be a good start for further negotiations on its disputed nuclear program. Senior U.S. officials have said they might agree to let Iran enrich uranium up to 5% purity if its government agreed to the unrestricted inspections, strict oversight and numerous safeguards that the United Nations has long demanded.

Ukrainian border guards arrested a man trying to take nearly a pound of uranium into Hungary, border guard spokesman Yevheniy Bargman said. Guards arrested the driver of a van at the Tisa checkpoint after finding the material, he said. It was unclear whether the uranium was in ore form or had been enriched for potential use in reactors or weapons.

Iran will offer to amend a proposed deal to transfer the bulk of its nuclear material abroad to be transformed into fuel for a peaceful Tehran medical reactor, state television reported today. Iran will respond to an American-backed International Atomic Energy Agency proposal within 48 hours but its counteroffer will include "important adjustments," said Iran's state-controlled Al Alam, citing unnamed sources. The Arabic-language television news channel often broadcasts official news or floats trial balloons before other networks.

A state regulatory decision to impose a more stringent health standard for uranium in groundwater has been unanimously upheld by the state Court of Appeals in Santa Fe. The New Mexico Water Quality Commission adopted the new standard in 2004, and the mining industry went to court to challenge the decision.

Twenty-four pounds of highly enriched uranium, enough for a crude nuclear weapon, was secretly flown to Russia last week from a research lab in Uzbekistan, where Washington had feared terrorists could obtain the material, the U.S. Energy Department said. The material came from nuclear fuel assemblies kept at a research reactor near Tashkent, the capital. It is to be turned into low-enriched uranium that will no longer be suitable for a weapon.

The head of Congo's atomic energy commission has been arrested on suspicion of illegally selling uranium found in the nation, officials said Wednesday. Fortunat Lumu and one of his aides were arrested Tuesday, Atty. Gen. Tshimanga Mukendi said. He declined to give details.

A Turkish police official said Sunday that the amount of uranium seized by officers the day before was about 5 ounces, not 33 pounds as initially reported. The state-run Anatolian news agency reported Saturday that paramilitary police in the southern province of Sanliurfa detained two men after discovering the uranium in a lead container hidden beneath a seat in a taxi. But the amount initially reported had included the weight of the container, a Sanliurfa police official said.

WASHINGTON - In what would be a significant concession, Obama administration officials say they could support allowing Iran to maintain a crucial element of its disputed nuclear program if Tehran took other major steps to curb its ability to develop a nuclear bomb. U.S. officials said they might agree to let Iran continue enriching uranium up to 5% purity, which is the upper end of the range for most civilian uses, if its government agrees to the unrestricted inspections, strict oversight and numerous safeguards that the United Nations has long demanded.

WASHINGTON — Iran's top nuclear official offered hope that Tehran may be flexible in upcoming international talks about its disputed nuclear program, indicating that the regime may be willing to halt production of the enriched uranium that most worries the West. Fereydoun Abbasi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said in an Iranian TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran wants only enough 20%-enriched uranium for its medical needs. The United States and its European allies are worried that Iran could refine the 20%-enriched uranium it is producing into weapons-grade fuel for a nuclear bomb in a matter of months.

Iran has stepped up production of enriched uranium and has refused to answer key questions about its nuclear development program, the United Nations atomic watchdog agency declared Friday in a strongly worded report that does little to resolve Western concern about whether Tehran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. U.N. nuclear inspectors continue "to have serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," Yukiya Amano, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, writes in the report issued Friday.

An Israeli bombing attack might set back Iran's nuclear development program by one to two years, America's top intelligence official told a Senate committee Thursday, indicating that viable military options are far more limited than Israeli leaders have suggested. James R. Clapper, director of National Intelligence, said he does not believe that Israel has decided to attack Iran's uranium enrichment and other nuclear facilities. Clapper said the U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran's leaders have not decided to build nuclear weapons but are pursuing technology that might allow them to do so. Clapper's appraisal comes as the standoff with Iran has raised concern in Washington and other capitals that Israel may launch a preemptive airstrike, as it did against nuclear targets in Iraq and Syria.

United Nations nuclear inspectors have concluded that Iran has acquired the technical means to design a nuclear weapon and would require about six months to enrich uranium to the quality needed for a bomb if it decided to do so, according to officials familiar with the evidence. Evidence of advances in Iran's research is expected to emerge this week in a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog. The IAEA report provides no "smoking gun" proof that Iran's government intends to build a nuclear weapon, said a European diplomat.

It's time to call Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bluff. Over the last few weeks, the Iranian president has stated on a number of occasions that his country will cease domestic efforts to manufacture fuel for one of its nuclear reactors if it is able to purchase the fuel from abroad. The United States should accept this proposal — publicly, immediately and unconditionally. Iran's enrichment program has been the focus of international concern for almost a decade. Its first efforts were geared toward enriching uranium to 5% — suitable for use in a power reactor.

Contrary to implications in Deborah Blum's "A Dark Magic in America's Silver Bullets" (Opinion, June 1) and the accompanying picture, it's unclear that the depleted uranium remaining after a battle is any more harmful or dangerous than other battle debris. Radiation emitted from DU is so low that it will generally not register on a radiation badge. In other words, you probably couldn't detect it out of the background radiation that we encounter daily. You're more likely to be harmed by the radiation you absorb at the beach than you are by being around DU. The half-life of U-238, which is overwhelmingly the primary isotope of DU, is not 109 years, as stated in Blum's piece.

Depleted uranium used by NATO in armor-piercing weapons in Kosovo had no detectable effect on health, a European Union panel of experts concluded. The findings concurred with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's own studies, which said there was no link between depleted uranium, a substance used for its penetrating power, and cancer among peacekeeping troops. U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Iran offered on Monday to open its nuclear program to five years of "full supervision" by the U.N. atomic energy agency if the world body lifts its sanctions, but made clear that it would forge ahead with its programs for uranium enrichment regardless. The offer from Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, came amid a new increase in warnings internationally over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. That was led by a report Friday in which the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said it was "increasingly concerned" that Tehran may be developing its uranium-enrichment program to produce nuclear payloads for missiles.