Iran defies West by enriching uranium

IRAN has started putting uranium feedstock gas into centrifuges, defying the West with actual enrichment work on making what can be nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material, diplomats said yesterday.

Uranium enrichment is seen as a red line by the United States and the EU in the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear programme, as it is crucial to making atomic weapons.

Putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into centrifuges, which distill out enriched uranium, is a major escalation by Iran in its a nuclear program, which the US claims hides atomic weapons development.

Iran said it would resume uranium enrichment even before the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meets next month in Vienna to decide whether to recommend UN Security Council action against Tehran.

One diplomat said: “Iran has put gas into centrifuges at its pilot enrichment plant in Natanz”.

The diplomat, who asked not to be named, said Iran had not yet fired up the whole 164-centrifuge cascade but had started work with some centrifuges.

A second diplomat said Iran was doing “preliminary work” with “stand-alone” centrifuges, almost certainly putting uranium gas into single machines rather than a whole cascade.

The diplomat said this was necessary in a step-by-step approach involving first getting centrifuges running, then operating a pilot plant, and then moving on to industrial-scale enrichment.

Iran says its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity and that it only wants to produce low-enriched uranium, which is not refined enough for weapons use. But it wants to install more than 50,000 centrifuges at Natanz, an array which could produce enough highly enriched uranium every two or three weeks for one atom bomb.

IAEA inspectors are to visit Natanz on Tuesday, where Iran is threatening to remove surveillance seals and cameras.

But a diplomat said: “The Iranians can still enrich while the seals are there but can not take material out without observation.”

The diplomat said some seals and surveillance cameras would remain in place but would be monitoring the production of nuclear fuel rather than the suspension of work that the Iranians are ending.

Since last August, Iran has been making UF6 in Isfahan. The West has seemed ready to let Tehran continue with this work - which technically is part of nuclear fuel activities the EU says should be suspended - as long as the Islamic Republic did not actually enrich.

The IAEA voted on February 4 to report Iran to the Security Council, but left a one-month window for Iran to fully suspend enrichment-related work and co-operate with inspectors.