Iranian technicians were to break UN seals on the Isfahan nuclear plant yesterday, allowing uranium processing to resume, a spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council said.
Officials from the UN's nuclear watchdog agency were to supervise the removal of the UN seals, the first step toward restarting central Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Conversion Facility, Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a report from the official IRNA news agency.
Reprocessing uranium is a step below uranium enrichment, which is to remain suspended, said Mohammadi. The US claims the Iranian nuclear program is designed to produce atomic weapons, a claim Iran denies.
The work is to resume at the Isfahan plant, which converts uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, into uranium gas, the feedstock for enrichment. Uranium enriched to high levels can be used for nuclear bombs; at low levels it is used as fuel for nuclear energy plants.
Earlier yesterday, Iran's parliamentary speaker said Tehran was giving European negotiators until 5pm local time yesterday to submit an incentives package to Iran before it would announce any such resumption.
But Iran's instructions to the IAEA appeared to be a break from that arrangement. No details were immediately available on the apparent change in the plan.
Iran's apparent decision to restart a step in uranium reprocessing could trigger a call by European and US officials to haul Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
European diplomats said Sunday that if Isfahan were restarted, an emergency IAEA board meeting would be called to set a deadline for the Iranians to "see the error of their ways" and stop their enrichment activities.
If such a deadline were not met, a Security Council referral was a likely next step, the officials said.
Iranian officials have signaled an intensifying impatience with the slow pace of negotiations with Europe, and an incoming conservative administration in Tehran has showed signs of wanting to harden the country's stance.
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