THE UN nuclear agency is investigating traces of highly enriched uranium it found at a nuclear research site in Egypt, according to a restricted International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report .
It did not say whether the particles, which IAEA inspectors found in environmental swipe samples, were enriched to a level high enough for use as fuel for an atom bomb, but that further tests in the vicinity were planned to clarify the matter.
Two diplomats familiar with IAEA inspections said the traces were of uranium enriched over 20 per cent but not to the fissile threshold of weaponisation – about 90 per cent. Older Soviet- and US-built research reactors used in many developing countries run on uranium enriched between 35 and 90 per cent.
The report, an 82-page document reviewing global operations in 2008 to verify compliance with non-proliferation rules, said the highly enriched uranium (HEU) traces were discovered at Egypts Inshas research reactor complex near Cairo in 2007-08.
Egypt had explained to the IAEA that it believed the HEU “could have been brought into the country through contaminated radio-isotope transport containers”, the May 5th report said.
Radio-isotopes are commonly used for agricultural and medicinal pruposes.
“Although the agency has no indications contrary to Egypts explanations, it has not yet identified the source of the particles,” the report said, and an inquiry would continue.
The HEU was discovered alongside particles of low-enriched uranium (LEU), the type refined by less than 20 per cent and typically used for nuclear power station fuel.
The IAEA is on high alert for possible nuclear proliferation in the Middle East given continued inquiries into allegations of secret nuclear fuel work with weapons dimensions in Iran and Syria, something both countries deny, and the 2003 exposure of a covert atomic bomb programme in Libya, since scrapped.
In February 2005, an IAEA report chided Egypt for repeatedly failing to declare nuclear sites and materials but said inspectors had found no sign of an atom bomb programme. – (Reuters)