MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

IAEA and Brazil agree on atomic inspection

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna confirmed Thursday that it had reached an agreement for inspecting Brazil's Resende uranium-enrichment plant.

"We have reached an agreement in principle with the Brazilian government to verify safeguards at the enrichment facility in Resende", revealed Mohamed El Baradei IAEA chief of the United Nations nuclear proliferation watchdog.

Earlier in the week Brazil said the IAEA gave it the green light to produce enriched uranium following a standoff lasting months on inspections.

Brazilian Science and Technology Minister Eduardo Campos announced that the IAEA had authorized his country to enrich uranium, but joint inspections of safeguards at the Resende plant must still be completed.

With IAEA approval, the plant located in Resende, in Rio de Janeiro state, will enrich small amounts of uranium. This limited production will last 6-8 months, while authorities make the final adjustments to carry out the process to enrich larger quantities of uranium bound for Brazil's two nuclear power plants. Uranium which is used as fuel for nuclear power plants can also be turned into making nuclear weapons.

Though Brazil has abundant uranium deposits, the mineral is sent to Canada and then Europe for further processing as a gas, before being sent back to Brazil, where it is finally converted into solid fuel the country's nuclear plants.

Vienna-based IAEA and the Brazilian government have argued for months over inspections of the Resende plant. Brasilia denying inspectors' access to its centrifuges on the grounds that the Brazilian developed technology cost the country twenty years of research and one billion US dollars.

Brazil claims the right to protect what it sees as trade secrets and has repeatedly denied that it is trying to develop an atomic bomb.

After months of negotiations, the IAEA agreed to the restrictions imposed by Brazil on the inspections. The technicians who made the visit were given limited access to the centrifuges but were able to see enough to confirm that no diversion of the enriched mineral for other purposes was being carried out.

The Brazilian centrifuges, developed by the military, use electromagnetic levitation that consume less fuel and costs 25% less than enrichment methods used by nations such as the United States.

Working with German technology Brazil has two nuclear energy plants Angra I and Angra II in Rio de Janeiro but a third unit Angra III has been paralyzed for 20 years.