Iran defies Western powers with enriched uranium conversions

A worker rides a bicycle in front of the reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Photo: VCG

Iran has defied Western powers by converting some of its uranium enriched to near weapons-grade into a form less easily recovered, diluted and shipped out of the country, a report by the UN nuclear watchdog on Wednesday showed.

The move is unlikely to wreck indirect talks between Iran and the US to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but it will make it harder to implement any resulting agreement to return to the limits on Iran's stock of enriched uranium.

US allies France, Britain and Germany, which are involved in the talks, said as much in a joint statement issued on March 8 in which they demanded that Iran not carry out the work.

"We strongly urge Iran to avoid undertaking any new escalations and in particular, call upon Iran to immediately cease all activity related to conversion of highly enriched uranium, which will have practical implications for returning to JCPoA limits," they said in the statement, calling the deal by its full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Until its latest move outlined in March 10's International Atomic Energy Agency report to member states, Iran's stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent was all in the form of uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for uranium-enriching centrifuges. Uranium hexafluoride can easily be diluted and transported, a process delegates at the talks have been discussing for months. The confidential report, seen by Reuters, said that between March 6 and March 9 the IAEA verified that Iran had converted 2.1 kilograms of its up to 60 percent uranium into 1.7 kilograms in a different form enriched to the same level suitable for making small "targets" for irradiation. The agency then verified on Tuesday that Iran had produced another batch of 56 targets containing a total of 329 grams of uranium enriched to the same level, the report said.