Iran advances move to nuclear fuel, defying UN

‘‘Some of the amount of the 37 tonnes has been used,’’ Aghazadeh was quoted as saying by Reuters, referring to a quantity of yellowcake, or uranium oxide, which Iran had earlier indicated it planned to convert into gas. ‘‘The tests have been successful but these test have to be continued using the rest of the material,’’ he said.

Washington is certain to use any failure by Iran to abide by the agency’s latest requests to push for Security Council referral when the board meets again on November 25.

Iran, as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has the right to convert uranium into a gas and to concentrate the fissile 235 isotope in that gas with high-speed centrifuges, a process known as enrichment.

Iran argues that its uranium enrichment programme is intended to produce low-enriched uranium for use in a nuclear power plant that it began building in the 1970s. But the US and other countries believe the programme is part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons.

But some American analysts warn that the international community has only a year or so left to stop the Iranian programme from achieving self-sufficiency.

The IAEA is trying to force the country to voluntarily accept limits to its rights under the NPT without setting off an Iranian withdrawal from the accord. Iran says it is reluctant to accept such limits, arguing that such discrimination is specifically prohibited under the treaty and that accepting any such limits would set a dangerous precedent for other treaties that it has signed.

‘‘We are determined to obtain peaceful atomic technology even if it causes a halt to international supervision,’’ Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said in Tehran on Tuesday. A clause in the NPT permits any country to withdraw on three months’ notice. North Korea withdrew in 2001. —(NYT)