Tehran breaks U.N. seals on nukes

Iran has broken seals placed on nuclear centrifuges by U.N. inspectors and resumed work on the equipment, raising fresh fears that a deal to keep Tehran from joining the world’s nuclear-armed powers has collapsed.

Diplomats at the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ lead agency on nuclear proliferation, confirmed yesterday that Iran had resumed construction of centrifuges, a key part of the nation’s nuclear program.

The equipment can be used to produce the material needed for atomic bombs. Iranian officials reportedly broke the IAEA seals on the centrifuge equipment late last month.

Diplomats told reporters that Iran has stopped short of using the centrifuges to begin production of enriched uranium for the bombs, a step that clearly would violate Iran’s obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said U.S. officials had not confirmed the Iranian move independently but that it fit with what the Bush administration considers a clear pattern of cheating by Iran’s Islamic government on its nuclear pledges.

“Iran’s commitment to cooperating with the IAEA, to put it kindly, remains an open question,” Mr. Ereli said, “given its past failures to follow through on promises made to the [IAEA] board of governors.”

Paul Leventhal, president of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute, said the Iranian decision was “clearly provocative” and a direct challenge to diplomatic efforts to rein in its nuclear programs.

“The Iranians only confess to what they are caught doing, so we don’t know how much more there is to learn,” he said. “Iran has been playing a very dangerous cat-and-mouse game, constantly testing how much they can get away with.”

The resumption of centrifuge construction also is a direct challenge to the efforts of Britain, France and Germany, which struck a deal with Tehran in October to halt efforts to build the centrifuges or seek to enrich uranium.

The three European powers have resisted a U.S. effort to refer Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions and other punitive measures, arguing that diplomacy is a better path for gaining Iran’s cooperation.

Iranian leaders insist that their nuclear programs are intended only for civilian energy purposes, and only grudgingly have conceded to violations uncovered in recent months by IAEA inspectors.

Tehran also has argued that the accord with the three European powers was voided when the IAEA Board of Governors issued another critical report on Iran’s nuclear cooperation at the board meeting in June. The construction resumed after the October moratorium expired, Iranian officials said.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said earlier this month, “Nothing stands in the way” of renewed centrifuge activity. Iranian officials reportedly informed IAEA officials of their decision to break the seals and said a separate pledge not to produce weapons-grade uranium remained in force.

Despite the disclosures, British diplomats said Iran and the three European powers will hold a previously scheduled meeting later this week at an undisclosed European location.

“We still firmly believe that this is the right way to achieve our goal,” a British Foreign Office official told Reuters news agency yesterday.

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