TEHRAN, Iran, Aug. 8, 2005
Iran Cranks Up Uranium Facility
Resumes Conversion Activity, Setting Up Possible Confrontation
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Two technicians carry a box containig uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, at the Uranium Conversion Facility of Iran, just outside the city of Isfahan. (AP)
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Germany, France and the United States have said that if Iran restarts work in Isfahan, they would seek to have Tehran referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose economic sanctions.
The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its program aims only to produce electricity. But Iran has insisted it has the right to develop the entire fuel cycle — from raw uranium to the fuel for a reactor. Europe fears that if Iran can develop fuel on its own, it will also secretly produce material for a bomb.
The Conversion Facility, 10 miles southeast of the historical city of Isfahan, carried out an early stage of the fuel cycle, turning raw uranium, known as yellowcake, into gas, the feedstock for enrichment.
"The Uranium Conversion Facility restarted its work a few minutes ago," the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Monday.
In the next stage of the process — which Iran has said it will not resume for the time being — the gas is fed in centrifuges for enrichment. Uranium enriched to a low level is used to produce nuclear fuel and further enrichment makes it suitable for use in atomic bomb.
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