Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, according to a new estimate by one of the USA's top nuclear experts. 
 
 Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, second left, gives a speech during an annual military parade in Tehran, Iran, Sept, 22, 2013. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi, AP) Story Highlights The Obama administration has said Iran is probably a year away from having enough enriched uranium to make a bomb 
 
 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said his country has no interest in nuclear weapons 
 
 U.N. inspectors have found evidence of a weapons program 
 
 Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, according to a new estimate by one of the USA's top nuclear experts. 
 
 The new assessment comes as the White House invited Senate staffers to a briefing on negotiations with Iran as it is trying to persuade Congress not to go ahead with a bill to stiffen sanctions against Iran. 
 
 "Shortening breakout times have implications for any negotiation with Iran," stated the report by the Institute for Science and International Security. "An essential finding is that they are currently too short and shortening further." 
 
 David Albright, president of the institute and a former inspector for the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said the estimate means that Iran would have to eliminate more than half of its 19,000 centrifuges to extend the time it would take to build a bomb to six months. 
 
 The Obama administration has said Iran is probably a year away from having enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. 
 
 Bernadette Meehan, an NSC spokeswoman for President Obama's National Security Council, said the intelligence community maintains "a number of assessments" regarding potential time frames for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one weapon or a testable nuclear device.hi 
 
 "We continue to closely monitor the Iranian nuclear program and its stockpile of enriched uranium," Meehan said. 
 
 World powers are seeking an agreement "that ultimately resolves all of the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear program," she said. "The ultimate goal is a comprehensive agreement that is credible, transparent, and verifiable." 
 
 In the report, Albright said negotiations with Iran should focus on so-called "breakout" times, or the time required to convert low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade. 
 
 Albright, who has testified before Congress, said the negotiators should try to find ways to lengthen the breakout times and shorten the time that inspectors could detect breakout. ISIS' analysis is based on the latest Iranian and United Nations reports on Iran's centrifuge equipment for producing nuclear fuel and its nuclear fuel stockpiles. 
 
 Iran's stockpile of medium-enriched uranium has nearly doubled in a year's time and its number of centrifuges has expanded from 12,000 in 2012 to 19,000 today. 
 
 Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican whose Senate Banking Committee is considering legislation to tighten Iran sanctions, said the report shows that Iran is expanding its nuclear capabilities under the cover of negotiations. 
 
 "The Senate should move forward immediately with a new round of sanctions to prevent Iran from acquiring an undetectable breakout capability," he said. 
 
 The White House has said new sanctions legislation should wait while current negotiations — scheduled to resume officially in Geneva next month — are moving forward. 
 
 The White House said Thursday it will continue consulting with Congress "so that any congressional action is aligned with our negotiating strategy as we move forward," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for President Obama's National Security Council. 
 
 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said his country has no interest in nuclear weapons but that producing nuclear fuel is Iran's right. His foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has said Iran will not ship its nuclear stockpile to a third country. 
 
 However, Iran has blocked international inspectors from some suspected nuclear facilities to verify they are being used for peaceful purposes, access required under international agreements it has signed. 
 
 United Nations inspectors have found evidence of a weapons program in violation of Iran's commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The USA and the U.N. Security Council have implemented crippling economic sanctions on Iran to sway it to take steps to assure the world it is not developing a bomb. 
 
 Israel, which sees an Iranian nuclear bomb as a threat to its very existence, has said it will take military action to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. 
 
 ISIS estimated in October 2012 that Iran could produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a bomb within two to four months. The new estimate is based on an analysis of the latest reports by Iran and the the IAEA. 
 
 ISIS considered various scenarios, including if Iran decided to build a covert enrichment plant like it has under a mountain in Fordow, near the city of Qom, that was designed for optimal efficiency and minimal time to enrich enough uranium for bomb making. Such a facility built with current Iranian technology could produce enough material for a bomb in a week, according to the ISIS report. 
 
 "If they did that and they were caught it would be a smoking gun of a nuclear weapons program," Albright said. 
 
 If Iran moves ahead with installation of its more efficient, second generation centrifuges, it would be able to produce enough nuclear fuel for a bomb with so few of them, between 2,000 and 3,300 centrifuges, that they could fit in a small warehouse, Albright said. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1gKaRJn ||||| A prominent Iranian lawmaker said Tehran doesn't need any more 20 percent-enriched uranium, a news agency covering the country's parliament reported late Wednesday night, a key point in negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the West. 
 
 In this picture taken on Friday, Nov. 2, 2012, Iranian school girls show their hands with writing in Persian in support supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denouncing the U.S. and one of them with... (Associated Press) 
 
 While lawmaker Hossein Naqvi Hosseini isn't a government spokesman nor a member of Iran's nuclear negotiation team, his comments touch on a major concession wanted by Western powers _ halting production of enriched uranium that could be used to build nuclear weapons. 
 
 Hosseini's brief comments, published online by ICANA, did not say whether Iran will stop enrichment. 
 
 "Tehran reactor fuel has been supplied and currently no need is felt for production of 20 percent-enriched uranium," Hosseini was quoted as saying. 
 
 Hosseini, who serves as a spokesman for the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, also said the country is prepared to relieve concerns over its stockpile of enriched uranium. 
 
 "Tehran is ready to convert its stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium to fuel rods and remove concerns over its non-peaceful use," he was quoted as saying. He offered no other details about what steps Iran would take. 
 
 Western powers fear Iran's nuclear program could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iran says its program is peaceful and is for advances in medical research and power generation. 
 
 Last week, Iranian diplomats met in Geneva with negotiators from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Iran hopes to ease the crippling economic and oil sanctions placed on its government over its contested nuclear program. 
 
 Iran currently runs more than 10,000 centrifuges which have created tons of fuel-grade material that can be further enriched to arm nuclear warheads. Tehran also has nearly 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of higher-enriched uranium in a form that can be turned into weapons much more quickly. Experts say 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of 20 percent-enriched uranium are needed to produce a single warhead 
 
 Among key concessions wanted by the West, according to two diplomats who spoke with The Associated Press, is that Iran stop enriching uranium to 20 percent. The diplomats say Iran offered to halt 20 percent enrichment at last week's Geneva talks. However, the Iranian government hasn't publicly commented on that. 
 
 Negotiators from Iran and the six powers are due to meet in Geneva for further talks on Nov. 7-8. ||||| WASHINGTON Iran could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear bombs by mid-2014, and the United States and its allies should intensify sanctions on Tehran before that point is reached, a report by a group of U.S. nonproliferation experts said. 
 
 President Barack Obama should also clearly state that the United States will take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, the report said. 
 
 The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has expressed concern that Iran's nuclear program has a military dimension. Tehran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes, calls those allegations baseless. 
 
 The 154-page report, "U.S. Nonproliferation Strategy for the Changing Middle East," produced by five nonproliferation experts, was expected to be released on Monday. 
 
 "Based on the current trajectory of Iran's nuclear program, we estimate that Iran could reach critical capability in mid-2014," the report said. 
 
 It defined "critical capability" as the point when Iran would be able to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more bombs without detection by the West. 
 
 By mid-2014, Iran would have enough time to build a secret uranium-enrichment site or significantly increase the number of centrifuges for its nuclear program, said David Albright, one of the project's co-chairs and president of the Institute for Science and International Security. 
 
 "We don't think there is any secret enrichment plant making significant secret uranium enrichment right now," he told Reuters. But there is "real worry" that Iran would build such a plant, he said. 
 
 The report recommends that the United States and its allies intensify sanctions pressure on Iran prior to that point because once Tehran acquires enough weapon-grade enriched uranium it would be "far more difficult to stop the program militarily." 
 
 INTERNATIONAL EMBARGO 
 
 The report recommends that the U.S. government should announce its intention to use sanctions to impose a "de facto international embargo on all investments in, and trade with, Iran" if Tehran does not comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions. 
 
 It also recommends sending a "crystal clear" message to Iran's leaders that U.S. military action would prevent them from succeeding in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. 
 
 "The president should explicitly declare that he will use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear program if Iran takes additional decisive steps toward producing a bomb," the report said. 
 
 On the civil war in Syria, the report said that the U.S. government should emphasize to the opposition trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad that once it comes into power, it will have to work with the international community to destroy Assad's chemical weapons stockpile. 
 
 Failure to do so would lead to sanctions and other measures at a time when a new government would need external assistance to consolidate control and develop the economy, the report said. 
 
 It also recommended stressing to the Assad government that it should destroy the chemical weapons rather than use them and face prosecution or have them fall into the hands of its opposition. 
 
 In addition to Albright, the other project co-chairs were Mark Dubowitz, executive director of The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Orde Kittrie, law professor at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law; Leonard Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies; and Michael Yaffe of the Near East, South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. They were not representing their institutions in this project. 
 
 (Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; editing by Philip Barbara) ||||| Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani attends a conference to mark the martyrs of terrorism in Tehran. September 6, 2011. 
 
 DUBAI Days before resuming talks over its disputed atomic program, Iran said on Saturday it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations. 
 
 State news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which said the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had trebled the amount outlined in previous estimates. 
 
 There was no independent confirmation. With few uranium mines of its own, Western experts had previously thought that Iran might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium. 
 
 "We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country and we will put them to use in the near future," Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the AEOI, was quoted as saying at Iran's annual nuclear industry conference. 
 
 The timing of the announcement suggested Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. 
 
 Diplomats say the six powers, known as the P5+1, are set to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium. 
 
 The West says Iran's enrichment of uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons capability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies. 
 
 FROM MINE TO CENTRIFUGE 
 
 The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived from yellow cake, a concentrate from uranium ore discovered in mines. 
 
 Iran's reserves of raw uranium now stood at around 4,400 tonnes, taking into account discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying. 
 
 In another sign that Iran is intent on pushing forward with its nuclear ambitions, the report also said 16 sites had been identified for the construction of nuclear power stations. 
 
 It did not specify the exact locations but said they included coastal areas of the Gulf, Sea of Oman, Khuzestan province and the Caspian Sea. 
 
 Iranian authorities have long announced their desire to build more nuclear power plants for electricity production. Only one currently exists, in the southern city of Bushehr, and that has suffered several shutdowns in recent months. 
 
 The announcements could further complicate the search for a breakthrough in Kazakhstan, after three unsuccessful rounds of talks between the two sides in 2012. 
 
 "We are meeting all of our obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and we should be able to benefit from our rights. We don't accept more responsibilities and less rights," Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was quoted as telling Saturday's conference. 
 
 In what Washington has called a provocative move, Iran is also installing new-generation centrifuges, capable of producing enriched uranium much faster, at a site in Natanz in the centre of the country. 
 
 Western diplomats say the P5+1 will reiterate demands for the suspension of uranium enrichment to a purity of 20 percent, the closure of Iran's Fordow enrichment plant, increased access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and agreement to address concerns on existing uranium stockpiles. 
 
 In return, the latest embargoes on gold and metals trading with Iran would be lifted. Iran has criticized the offer and says its rights need to be fully recognized. 
 
 "If the P5+1 group wants to start constructive talks with Tehran it needs to present a valid proposal," said Jalili. "It needs to put its past errors to one side ... to win the trust of the Iranian nation." 
 
 In a statement issued before the Iranian announcement, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the six-power group wanted to enter a 'substantial negotiation process' over Tehran's nuclear program. 
 
 "The talks in Almaty are a chance which I hope Iran takes," he said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
– In just a month, Iran could have enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb, a US expert says. "Breakout times"—a reference to the period needed to get weapons-grade uranium from low-enriched uranium—"are currently too short and shortening further." The findings, from the Institute for Science and International Security, are based on Iranian and UN data on nuclear progress, USA Today notes. The White House is currently urging Congress to hold off on potential tougher sanctions on the country. Meanwhile, however, some US officials say new nuclear talks with Iran are going well. "I have never had such intense, detailed, straightforward, candid conversations with the Iranian delegation before," says a negotiator, per the Christian Science Monitor. Indeed, an Iranian lawmaker says the country isn't currently enriching uranium to 20% purity, a point at which it's easy to make weapons-grade stuff, the Monitor notes. MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini says there's "no need for further production" of 20%-enriched uranium, the Telegraph reports. Such a halt is one of the West's central goals in negotiations, the Monitor reports. Hosseini, however, isn't a government spokesman or nuclear negotiator, the AP notes.