WASHINGTON, Aug 20, (Agencies): The United States has persuaded Israel that Iran would take one year or longer to build a nuclear weapon, dimming the prospects of a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The New York Times said late Thursday.

“We think that they have roughly a year dash time,” President Barack Obama’s top advisor on nuclear issues Gary Samore was quoted as saying in the daily’s online edition.
By “dash time,” the official referred to the shortest time Iran would take to build a nuclear weapon, judging from its existing facilities and capacity to convert stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material, a process known as “breakout.”
Samore said the United States believes international inspectors would detect any Iranian move toward “breakout” within weeks, leaving the US and Israel ample time to craft a response.
Israel has hinted in the past that it would likely attack Iranian nuclear facilities should the Islamic republic try to build an atomic bomb it would consider a direct threat to Israeli territory.
Israel believes Iran is only months away from such a scenario, while the US intelligence thinks it would take longer.

Based on intelligence collected over the past year, the new US assessment is not clear on what problems Iran’s uranium enrichment program — which it insists is for peaceful purposes — is confronting.

The daily said the lag could be due to poor centrifuge design, difficulty in obtaining components or accelerated Western efforts to sabotage the nuclear program.
ran would stop higher-grade enrichment if it is assured of nuclear fuel supplies for a research reactor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a Japanese newspaper on Friday.
Published on the eve of the inauguration of Iran’s first nuclear power plant, Ahmadinejad’s comments appeared to signal possible willingness to compromise on a key concern for the West regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.

Major powers suspect that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear bombs, a fear that was heightened by its move in February to start enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent from around 3.5 percent previously, taking it closer to weapons-grade levels.

Iran says all its work is for peaceful purposes and that it was forced to enrich to higher levels after UN-backed talks for a fuel swap deal with the United States, Russia and France stalled late last year.
In June, the UN Security Council passed a fourth sanctions resolution against Tehran, with Washington and Brussels piling on tougher economic punishment. Like previous sanctions, it called for a halt of Iran’s entire enrichment programme.

Ahmadinejad has said talks could resume in September, although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Iran would not talk with the United States unless sanctions and military threats were lifted.

In his interview with Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, Ahmadinejad said Iran could stop 20 percent enrichment as part of a deal. Major powers have made clear they want Iran to halt such work as a pre-condition for any fuel exchange agreement.
“We promise to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity if we are ensured fuel supply,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in the interview, published in Japanese.
But he rejected calls for Iran to stop all enrichment, something the UN Security Council has called for.
Missile

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced on Friday that Iran has test fired a surface-to-surface missile, Qiam, a day before it is due to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant.
State television showed images of the sand coloured Qiam (Rising) blasting into the air from a desert terrain, amid chants of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
The words “Ya Mahdi” were written on the side of the missile, referring to Imam Mahdi, one of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam, who disappeared as a boy and whom the faithful believe will return one day to bring redemption to mankind.

Vahidi, whose speech during Friday prayers in Tehran was broadcast on television, did not say when the launch took place nor did he reveal the precise range of the missile.
Fars news agency had in a report earlier this week quoted the minister as saying that Qiam was a short-range missile.
“The missile has new technical aspects and has a unique tactical capacity,” he said on Friday, adding that the device was of a “new class.”
“Since the surface-to-surface missile has no wings, it has lot of tactical power, which also reduces the chances of it being intercepted,” he said.
Iran’s ISNA news agency cited Vahidi as saying that Qiam was entirely designed and built domestically and was powered by liquid fuel.

“This missile is capable of hitting the target with high precision,” Vahidi said.
On Tuesday, Vahidi had said that Qiam was to be test fired during the annual government week, the period when Tehran touts its achievements in various fields. This year government week begins on Monday.
The third generation Fateh 110 (Conqueror) missile was also to be test fired during this period. Iran has previously paraded a version of Fateh 110 which has a travel range of 150 to 200 kms (90 to 125 miles).
Also during government week, the production lines of two missile-carrying speedboats, Seraj (Lamp) and Zolfaqar (named after Shiite Imam Ali’s sword) are due to be inaugurated, while a long-range drone, Karar, is expected to be unveiled.
The firing of Qiam comes days after Iran took delivery of four new mini-submarines of the home-produced Ghadir class. Weighing 120 tonnes, the “stealth” submarines are aimed at operations in shallow waters, notably in the Gulf.

There is a one hundred percent guarantee that Iran’s first nuclear power plant, set for its official launch on Saturday, will be used only for peaceful purposes, a top Russian official said.
“Of course there is a one hundred percent guarantee, because this guarantee is not one formulated by Moscow but by objective fact,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency.
He said that the fact that Russia had delivered the fuel for the plant and would take back spent fuel for reprocessing showed that all non-proliferation rules applied to the plant.
Fuel

Iran’s first nuclear power station will be loaded with fuel on Saturday, a showcase for Tehran’s claim that its atomic ambitions are purely peaceful.
Experts say firing up the $1-billion Bushehr plant will not take Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb as Russia will supply the enriched uranium for the reactor and take away spent fuel rods which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.
Iran insists it does not want nuclear weapons anyway.
After decades of delays, the event is a milestone in Iran’s path to harness technology which it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas and to prepare for the day when the minerals riches dry up.
“It is a big day. Iran has been waiting for it for years. Bushehr has seen the start up postponed so many times that Iranians will breath a sigh of relief,” said Mark Fitzpatrick of London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Iran will claim victory over the United States which has tried to block a nuclear programme it sees as highly suspect.
Western nations question why Iran wants to enrich uranium itself when, as Bushehr shows, it does not need it for power stations. Tehran’s refusal to cease enrichment has resulted in a raft of new United Nations sanctions and tougher unilateral measures by the United States, the European Union and elsewhere.
“The inauguration of the plant will be a thorn in the side of ill-wishers,” said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.
Diplomats say the Bushehr plant, monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, poses little proliferation risk and has no link with Iran’s secretive uranium enrichment programme, seen as the main “weaponisation” threat, at other installations.

Talks
Iran is ready to return to stalled talks with world powers without conditions over a plan to swap nuclear material for fuel, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a Japanese newspaper on Friday.

Iran was open to resuming talks by late August or early September with permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in an interview.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Iran would not conduct talks with the United States about its nuclear programme unless sanctions and military threats were lifted.
Iran last met the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia in October, when they discussed Iran sending low-enriched uranium abroad in exchange for fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes medical isotopes.

Sanctions
US officials have held talks with Turkey over US sanctions on Iran, US and Turkish officials said, a possible sign that Washington may be growing impatient with Ankara’s trade with Iran despite sanctions.

The meeting this week, which included talks between US State and Treasury officials and the Turkish government, came as Turkey said it would support Turkish companies making sales to Tehran despite unilateral US sanctions that restrict trade.
“They were here to discuss and explain UN sanctions and also the new US sanctions package signed into legislation by President Obama on July 1,” a US embassy official in Ankara told Reuters.
The official said Turkey was one of many countries the delegation was planning to visit.
“There was an exchange of views about US sanctions on Iran,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry source told Reuters.
“We told them Turkey does not feel itself bound to adhere to any sanctions other than those enacted by the UN.”

Since June, the UN Security Council, the United States and the European Union have tightened sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, which Washington fears is a cover to build an atomic bomb. Tehran says its aims are purely peaceful.