Iran could enrich uranium on mass scale in six months: El Baradei
Pakistan Times Wire Service

LONDON: Iran may be able to enrich uranium on a mass scale in just six months, but it could still be 10 years away from the capacity to build a nuclear bomb, the chief UN monitor said in remarks published Monday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told a British newspaper that since August Iran has been using centrifuges at a pilot plant in the town of Natanz to enrich uranium.

The UN watchdog believes that Iran could set up an industrial scale capacity of 3,000 centrifuges within the next 12 months. That would be enough to begin producing fissile material for a bomb.

"It could be six months, it could be a year," ElBaradei said in an interview in the newspaper's Tuesday edition. ElBaradei added that Tehran had learned so much from its pilot programme that it would be impossible to turn the clock back.

Although fears that Tehran might learn enough about uranium enrichment may have "been relevant six months ago, it is not relevant today because Iran has been running these centrifuges for at least six months," ElBaradei said.

Uranium is enriched to be civilian reactor fuel but can also make the explosive core of atom bombs.

The UN Security Council imposed sanctions in December to force Iran to halt all enrichment work. Iran is expected to be unlikely to meet a UN deadline Wednesday to suspend enrichment.●