Atomic enrichment: Iran stokes dpl showdown with west

TEHRAN: Iran on Tuesday resumed feeding uranium gas into centrifuges for nuclear-fuel enrichment after a break of 2-1/2 years, stoking a diplomatic showdown with the West which suspects Tehran secretly seeks to build atomic bombs.

Iran earlier on Tuesday announced it was deferring until next week talks on a Russian proposal to defuse the standoff, but gave no sign it was ready to stop purifying uranium on its own soil - the key element in Moscow's plan.

Officials close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said IAEA inspectors observed Iranian scientists putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into a small number of centrifuges, machines that convert uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors or, if enriched to high levels, warheads.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, director of Iran's atomic programme, was quoted by the ISNA student news agency as saying the centrifuge work relaunched at the Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant was on a "small and laboratory scale".

"Injecting gas into one or a few centrifuges could not be termed enrichment," he was quoted as saying.

But European Union president Austria urged Iran to stop enrichment activities, describing them as "an unnecessary escalatory step" that would worsen ties between the 25-nation bloc and the Islamic Republic.

"The resumption by Iran of enrichment-related activities will impact negatively on our overall relationship", Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said in a statement after talking by telephone to her Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.

Russia and France earlier issued a similar call.

A diplomat close to the IAEA, the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, said inspectors watched Iranians doing test infusions of UF6 into "less than 10 centrifuges" among a cascade of 164 operational at Natanz before it was mothballed in 2003.

Earlier in the day, Iran said preliminary work was under way to prepare centrifuges for production after the extended suspension in such work, maintained under Western pressure.

Uranium hexafluoride typically must be enriched to 5 percent purity for nuclear reactor fuel and to around 90 percent to set off the chain reaction required for a bomb.

Russia has offered to enrich uranium on Iran's behalf in a compromise designed to allay world fears that the Iranians might siphon nuclear material off into underground bomb-making. Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi said talks on the proposal would now start in Moscow on Feb. 20.

"We still want to reach a formula to prove that we will not divert uranium enriched on Iranian soil," he told reporters.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei plans a conclusive report to the agency's board on March 6 on Iran. His report will go to the Security Council ahead of an expected debate on how to curb Iran's atomic work, with sanctions a possible option.

Tehran,Wednesday, Reuters