VIENNA, Austria – Iran has offered to stop some activities linked to uranium enrichment, diplomats said Tuesday. The United States said the move would not stop it from trying to have Tehran hauled before the U.N. Security Council for allegedly trying to make nuclear arms.
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran tentatively agreed to re-impose a freeze on making, testing and assembling centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
Uranium enriched to high levels can be used to make nuclear warheads. At lower levels, enriched uranium can generate power, the only activity Iran asserts it is interested in.
Iran last year agreed to freeze enrichment activities but has since resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges. Last week it confirmed a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog – that it planned to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafluoride, the feed stock for enrichment.
U.S. officials are leading an effort at an IAEA board of governors meeting opening in Vienna on Monday to have Iran declared in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a move that could force the U.N. Security Council to take action against Iran.
Enrichment does not fall under treaty obligations, but Tehran has been under international pressure for more than a year to fully renounce enrichment to counterbalance suspicions generated by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities that came to light only two years ago.
Although Iran agreed to suspend its enrichment program almost a year ago, even that commitment – which fell short of a pledge sought by the international community to scrap enrichment – eroded over the subsequent months. Iran confirmed in July that it had resumed building nuclear centrifuges.
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