Iran in process of fully opening nuclear facility

IRAN removed the final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant yesterday, as UN inspectors watched, paving the way for Tehran to fully open the facility.

This is despite European and US calls for it to maintain the suspension of its nuclear programme.

The move came as Europe and the US were struggling to find leverage to stop Iran from forging ahead with its nuclear programme, which Washington says secretly aims to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran says its program is peaceful, intended only to produce electricity.

Board members of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), cancelled a session tentatively planned for yesterday in Vienna, Austria, signalling how difficult it was for delegates to agree on how to rebuke Iran.

The US and some European countries had talked of referring Iran to the UN security council for possible economic sanctions - but that option was fading over concerns it could backfire by hardening Iran’s position. Iran has already said it would rather endure sanctions than back down on a program it says is a matter of national pride.

US President George W Bush said on Tuesday he was deeply suspicious about Iran’s intentions.

Iran began work on Monday at its Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility, 255 miles south of Tehran. But some key units at the plant had remained under IAEA seal since a November suspension in activity.

All the seals were removed yesterday and the agency said it had a surveillance system in place at the facility to keep tabs on the work.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, told state-run television earlier on Monday that work would start at the units as soon as the seals were removed, but he didn’t specify in his latest comments if that had happened.

The reopening of the plant is part of a tough new stance Iran is taking over its nuclear programme. It suspended all nuclear activities in November to avoid UN sanctions and as a gesture in negotiations with the Europeans, who have been trying to persuade Iran to limit its nuclear programme.

Over the weekend, Iran rejected European proposals offering economic incentives in return for abandoning its uranium processing facilities. New hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the offer “an insult”, but he said Iran wanted to continue negotiations and would make its own proposals.

Iran has said it won’t resume uranium enrichment - the most crucial part of its program - for the time being. Enrichment can produce fuel for a nuclear power reactor or material for a nuclear bomb.

The Isfahan facility carries out an earlier stage of the process, converting raw uranium - or ‘yellowcake’ - into uranium hexaflouride gas, UF-6, the feedstock for enrichment.

Before the November suspension, the Isfahan facility converted 37 tonnes of yellowcake into UF-4, a preliminary stage. Experts say that amount could yield 200lb of weapons-grade uranium, enough to make five crude nuclear weapons.

The seals were removed yesterday from the unit that converts UF-4 to UF-6, meaning it can now complete the conversion for the 37 tonnes, as well as convert more yellowcake from scratch.