PRAGUE - Iran continues to press
ahead with its controversial efforts to master
technologies that could one day give it the
domestic ability to produce nuclear fuel.
The latest sign comes with an announcement
this week that Tehran has successfully used
biotechnology to convert uranium ore mined in
Iran's central desert region into a concentrated
form of uranium.
The concentrated uranium
- known as yellowcake - is used in an early stage
of the complex process of producing nuclear fuel.
State television provided few details
of the biotechnology
technique, other than to say
it is more efficient and less expensive than
Iran's previous method of using acid.
Biotechnology techniques involve the use
of microscopic organisms to convert material
through organic processes from one form to
another.
Shannon Kile, a nuclear expert at
the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute in
Sweden, said the new technology does not by itself
bring Iran closer to mastering the sensitive
process of uranium enrichment - the focus of the
Iranian nuclear crisis.
"The process that
was announced is the very first step when the
uranium is actually extracted from the mine and
then is converted into yellowcake," Kyle said.
"That's the beginning step of any process in the
subsequent nuclear fuel cycle, so this is really
the very first step at the front end of the fuel
cycle."
But the analyst said the
development was important because it showed that
Tehran was determined to master less sensitive
elements of the fuel cycle, despite European and
US requests that it abandon all activities related
to uranium enrichment.
"I think it is
important to see the announcement by the Iranians
as indications that they are going to move ahead
with their civilian nuclear-fuel cycle program and
that they have no intentions of suspending all the
activities in that program, as has been requested
by the Europeans and the Americans," Kyle said.
The news of Iran's latest activity comes
two months after Iran rejected an offer by three
European Union states (Britain, France and
Germany) of technology and trade assistance in
exchange for Tehran abandoning all activities
related to uranium enrichment. At the same time,
Tehran ended its agreement with the European
states to suspend such work while the two sides
held talks.
French President Jacques
Chirac on August 29 warned Iran that unless those
talks resumed Western states will have no choice
but to ask that the Iranian nuclear crisis be
referred to the UN Security Council.
"There is room for dialogue and
negotiation [with Iran]," Chirac said. "We urge
Iran to show a spirit of responsibility to
reestablish cooperation and trust, without which -
and I would regret that - the Security Council
will have no choice but to examine the issue."
Iran broke its agreement with France,
Britain and Germany - the so-called EU-3 - by
resuming some nuclear work at the Uranium
Conversion Facility in Isfahan in early August.
Work at the facility includes the processing of
uranium yellowcake.
All activities at the
Isfahan plant had been suspended since November
2004 as part of the Iran-EU agreement to hold
nuclear talks.
The US State Department has
called on Iran to "reengage with the EU-3, and not
only reengage but take the deal that has been
offered them".
Spokesman Sean McCormack
called the European offer "a good deal".
Iran said on August 28 that it no longer
considered the three EU states its sole
negotiating partners in trying to end the
international crisis over its nuclear activities.
Iranian officials have indicated Tehran now may
try to broaden the talks to include non-aligned
countries.
The pressure for Iran to resume
the talks is mounting ahead of a September 3
meeting in Vienna of the board of governors of the
UN's nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA is charged
with monitoring Iran's compliance with
international treaty obligations permitting it to
develop civilian nuclear technology but
prohibiting activities that could lead to
nuclear-weapons development.
Iran's most
controversial nuclear-processing activities have
been its efforts to master uranium enrichment,
which can be used to produce fuel for nuclear
reactors or - at high levels of enrichment -
weapons-grade material.
Those efforts,
conducted in secret, were uncovered in 2002,
precipitating the Iran nuclear crisis. Since then,
Iran has said it is not engaged in uranium
enrichment but will not give up its right to
master the technology, along with all other stages
of the fuel cycle.
Tehran maintains it is
only developing a nuclear program to meet its
electricity needs.
Iran's new minister of
defense and armed forces logistics, General
Mustafa Mohammad-Najjar, said this week that "as
our Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] has
said, the non-peaceful use of nuclear technology
is religiously forbidden."
Copyright
(c) 2005, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the
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