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新浪首页 > 新浪教育 > Iran Find Raises New Nuke Doubt

Iran Find Raises New Nuke Doubt
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/02/23 13:00  Shanghai Daily

  United Nations inspectors in Iran have found equipment that can enrich uranium for weapons use and is far more advanced than anything Tehran has previously acknowledged, diplomats in Vienna said yesterday.

  The find of the advanced centrifuge system is the second piece of evidence uncovered this month that casts new doubt on Iran's commitment to prove it does not want atomic weapons.

  In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the reported discovery raises serious concerns.

  "A country with the vast oil and gas resources of Iran has no legitimate need for nuclear energy," McClellan told reporters. "And full confidence about Iran's nuclear program requires Iran to abandon uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities."

  Another US official said the latest find was the second dramatic disclosure in a row.

  "We knew that the Iranians were not completely clean, but we were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt," he said.

  Iran insisted its intentions are peaceful and that its centrifuges are to process uranium for nuclear power, not warheads.

  Without explicitly acknowledging the discovery, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said any advanced P-2 centrifuge system in the country was not in use but rather at a research stage.

  One of the diplomats said the centrifuge was apparently found at an Iranian air base outside the capital - which would strengthen the arguments that Iran is trying to make weapons.

  But several other diplomats said they did not know where the equipment was found, and the Iranian government said there were no nuclear projects on any military base in the country.

  Confronted by evidence last year, Iran acknowledged hiding nearly two decades of nuclear activity.

  (The Associated Press)




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