Tehran, Iran – Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan nuclear facility today, a step that Europeans and the United States warned would prompt them to seek U.N. sanctions against the Tehran regime.
Work restarted at the conversion facility in central Iran quickly after inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog finished installing surveillance equipment and removing seals on equipment.
The move came as the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors prepared to hold an emergency session Tuesday to consider whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions.
Germany, France and the United States have said they would likely recommend that the IAEA act against Iran if work at Isfahan resumed.
Iran had suspended work at the plant and its other nuclear facilities in November to avoid U.N. sanctions and as a gesture in negotiations with the European Union.
The Europeans have been trying to persuade Iran to sharply limit its nuclear operations, which has raised concerns in the West since it was revealed that some parts of the program had been hidden from IAEA inspectors for years. But Iran on Saturday rejected an EU proposal for it to curtail the program in return for economic incentives.
The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its program aims only to produce electricity and says it has the right to develop the entire nuclear fuel cycle – from raw uranium to the fuel for a reactor. Europe fears that if Iran develops fuel on its own, it will also secretly produce material for bombs.
The conversion facility, 10 miles southeast of the city of Isfahan, carried out an early stage of the fuel cycle, turning raw uranium, known as yellowcake, into UF-6 gas, the feedstock for enrichment.
The official Islamic Republic News Agency announced that the Isfahan plant resumed work today, with uranium ore “taken into a special room for injection, sampling and other reprocessing activities.” It said the plant will soon start turning yellowcake into UF-4, a preliminary stage before UF-6.
IAEA inspectors will remove seals from the unit where UF-4 is turned into UF-6 in the next few days, bringing the facility into full work, the report said.
In the next stage of the process, which Iran has said it will not resume for the time being, the gas is fed into centrifuges for enrichment. Uranium enriched to a low level is used for reactor fuel but further enrichment makes it suitable for atomic bombs.
An exiled opposition group urged the IAEA to refer Iran to the Security Council, accusing the Tehran regime of exploiting talks with the EU in a “cat and mouse game” to stall for time while covertly developing a nuclear weapons program.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed to have obtained a classified document in which Iranian officials purportedly gloat over their ability to pursue that work while the United States is preoccupied with the war in Iraq.
Farid Soleimani, a senior official with the Paris-based opposition group, told reporters in Vienna, Austria, that the document was issued in June by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He said it described the two years of negotiations with the EU as a “major achievement” for Iran’s nuclear program because the talks took the pressure off the regime.
“We thwarted U.S. efforts to accuse Iran of noncompliance” with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which forbids Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, Soleimani quoted the report as saying.
Before the suspension of work at Isfahan, Iran converted some 37 tons of yellowcake into UF-4. Experts say that amount of yellowcake could yield over 200 pounds of weapons-grade uranium if fully enriched, enough to make five crude nuclear weapons.
The Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan and the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, also in central Iran, house the heart of Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran says suspension of all its nuclear activities has harmed its technological advancement and left hundreds of scientists without work.
Iran’s nuclear program has also turned into a matter of national pride for both reformers and hard-liners within Iran’s ruling Islamic establishment.
In rejecting the EU proposal Saturday, Iran said the offer failed to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium under the Nonproliferation Treaty.
The proposal called for Iran to agree not to resume enrichment or other related activities in exchange for Europe ensuring a supply of fuel for nuclear reactors, technical help in building nuclear facilities and other economic incentives.
