Iran has continued to meet its commitments under an interim nuclear deal with six world powers, a confidential United Nations nuclear agency report seen by Reuters showed on Friday.
The monthly update by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was not enriching uranium above a fissile concentration of 5 percent. It also said Iran had not made “any further advances” to its activities at two enrichment facilities and an unfinished heavy water reactor.
However, the report said as well that Iran has temporarily stopped converting its higher-grade uranium oxide into reactor fuel – a process designed to make the material less suitable for any bid to assemble nuclear weapons. Tehran denies any such aim.
Continued conversion work was one of the conditions when the interim agreement, originally reached in late 2013, was extended for a second time late last month. The extension came after Iran and the global powers failed to meet a self-imposed deadline for resolving their 12-year nuclear dispute.
The IAEA report said Iran on Nov. 25 “temporarily stopped the operations for conversion and fuel manufacturing” in preparation for the U.N. agency’s inventory checks at the facility that were subsequently carried out Dec. 14-16.
One Vienna-based diplomatic source said he saw no problem with this.
REUTERS
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