VIENNA, Feb 3: The United States has complained to the European Union about centrifuge-related work by Iran that could be used to make nuclear weapons and may violate a uranium enrichment freeze Tehran agreed with the EU
, diplomats said on Thursday.
Washington's top non-proliferation official, Under secretary of State John Bolton, wrote on Jan 28 to the foreign ministry political directors of Britain, France and Germany about "maintenance" work on centrifuge piping at an enrichment plant at Natanz, in southern Iran, a Western diplomat said.
Mr Bolton also said in his letter that Iran had done work on uranium conversion, the first step in the enrichment process, at a facility in Isfahan without notifying the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in advance.
Britain, France and Germany struck an agreement with Iran in November to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities in return for talks on trade, security and technological bonuses for Tehran.
The talks began in Brussels in December, then moved to Geneva last month and are continuing with a third round in Geneva next week. The talks are deadlocked as the EU is now calling on Iran to totally dismantle its nuclear fuel program in order to guarantee it does not seek atomic weapons, according to confidential reports.
Iran insists its nuclear program is a strictly peaceful effort to generate electric power but an Iranian resistance group said in Paris on Thursday that Tehran has obtained the materials and expertise to make the triggers for an atomic bomb.
Iran refuses to halt uranium enrichment definitively as it insists that the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty guarantees its right to such activities when they are peaceful.
In the enrichment process, uranium ore is converted into a gas and then refined in cascades of rapidly spinning centrifuges into what can be fuel for nuclear power reactors but also the explosive core of atomic bombs.
A Western diplomat said Washington was "concerned that Iran never declared the tunnels at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility to the IAEA before they began construction, as well as concerned about some suspicious activity at Natanz". -AFP
