But there are precedents, as Western intelligence services were a year and half in the fog regarding a North Korean uranium enrichment plant.
The proposals might involve easing some of the sanctions which have been imposed on Iran, in return for shutting its Fordo uranium enrichment plant, reports say.
Blair noted that since late 2007 Iran has more than doubled the number of centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, to more than 8, 000 from 3, 000.
He accused foreign powers of pushing the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to rebuke Iran for covering up another uranium enrichment plant near the town of Qom.
At the Pittsburgh G20 Summit in September 2009, President Barack Obama, then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy exposed a new Iranian underground uranium enrichment plant near Qom.
FORBES: The Dangers Of Doing Business With Iran's Revolutionary Guards
Blair went on to note the discovery last year of a secret, second uranium enrichment plant "deep under a mountain near the city of Qom" (and on a military base of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps--though Blair did not spell that out).
Even prior to the November 23 distribution by the IAEA to its member states of its periodic report on Iran, much was heard heralding the fact that the Iranians were grappling with complications in operating their gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.
FORBES: The New York Times Fails To Deliver Stuxnet's Creators
In the fall of 2009, when news emerged that Iran had secretly built a uranium enrichment plant on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Qom, ElBaradei went to Iran, and on Oct. 4 made a statement there that could hardly have been more deferential toward the UN sanctioned and nonproliferation-treaty-violating Iranian regime.
Last year Iran was found building a hitherto secret uranium-enrichment plant on a military compound outside Qom.
So are electronic copies of detailed, e-mailable designs for a uranium-enrichment plant.
Mr Bush has called for a moratorium on the sale of uranium technologies to countries without them, but he has winked at Brazil's decision to build a uranium-enrichment plant.
North Korea is thought to have enough nuclear material for around six to 10 bombs and recently said it would restart its only reactor and uranium-enrichment plant to create more.
They might take out officially declared sites, but intelligence agencies know that there are others too, like the weapons-sized uranium-enrichment plant being built secretly in a mountainside on a well-guarded compound near Qom whose existence was revealed only four months ago.
Four years ago it promised to stop helping at nuclear facilities that were not subject to international safeguards but only to avoid American sanctions after it had delivered parts used in uranium enrichment to an unsafeguarded plant in Pakistan.
North Korea revealed a uranium-enrichment facility at the plant in 2010, another route to provide fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran has told the UN nuclear agency it plans to upgrade uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz plant, reports citing diplomats say.
The Iranians now say they will restart the manufacture and testing of their uranium-enrichment machines at a pilot plant at Natanz.
ECONOMIST: The Europeans' soft approach to Iran seems to have failed
France, Germany and Britain criticised Iran's decision to start operating a plant for converting uranium into gas before its enrichment in centrifuges.
They dismantled uranium-enrichment and other nuclear weapons installations and destroyed a chemical weapons plant and hundreds of missile warheads armed with poison gas.
Iran announced that it had managed to produce low-enriched uranium from its first 164-machine cascade of centrifuges at its pilot enrichment plant at Natanz.
Amano noted that Iran has recently begun installing IR-2m centrifuges at its fuel enrichment plant at Natanz, and that those high-speed devices that rotate to enrich uranium are more advanced than the previously-installed centrifuges.
P-2 machines, and either starting from scratch or with already partially enriched uranium (getting to 3-5% is already the hardest part) from its publicly known enrichment plant, Iran could spring a much nastier nuclear surprise.
Iran is already experimenting with uranium-enriching centrifuges and building its first proper cascade of them as fast as it can at its enrichment plant at Natanz.
应用推荐