Iran's Nuclear Stockpile Continues To Grow

Secretary of State John Kerry, left, with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva on Saturday. Credit Pool photo by Susan Walsh

New York Times: Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations

WASHINGTON — With only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been “frozen” during that period.

But Western officials and experts cannot quite figure out why. One possibility is that Iran has run into technical problems that have kept it from converting some of its enriched uranium into fuel rods for reactors, which would make the material essentially unusable for weapons. Another is that it is increasing its stockpile to give it an edge if the negotiations fail.

The extent to which Iran’s stockpile has increased was documented in a report issued Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations organization that monitors compliance with nuclear treaties. The agency’s inspectors, who have had almost daily access to most of Iran’s nuclear production facilities, reported finding no evidence that Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon, and said Tehran had halted work on facilities that could have given it bomb-making capabilities.

WNU Editor: So much for President Obama's 2015 State of the Union claim that because of negotiations the Iranian nuclear program had been “frozen” ....

.... “Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.” (President Obama, State of the Union address, Jan. 20, 2015).