VIENNA (AP) - Iran has met a key commitment under a preliminary nuclear deal setting up the current talks on a final agreement, leaving it with several tons less of the material it could use to make weapons, according to a U.N. report issued Wednesday.
Obtained by the Associated Press, the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency report said more than four tons of the enriched uranium had been fed into a pipeline that ends with conversion of it into oxide, which is much less likely to be used to make nuclear arms.
The report indicated only several hundred pounds of the oxide that is the end product had been made. But a U.S. official told the AP the rest of the enriched uranium in the pipeline has been transformed into another form of the oxide that would be even more difficult to reconvert into enriched uranium, which can be turned into the fissile core of nuclear arms.
The official said technical problems by Iran had slowed the process but the United States was satisfied Iran had met its commitments to reduce the amount of enriched uranium it has stored. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the confidential review process.
Iran's meeting conditions of the preliminary deal is an important benchmark as the talks go into the final stage of talks on an agreement meant to put long-term caps on Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for relief of economic penalties.
Violations by Iran would complicate the Obama administration's argument U.S. negotiators are holding the line on demands for a verifiable deal that extends the time Iran would need to make a weapon to at least a year. Tehran says its nuclear program is meant only to fuel reactors and for other non-military purposes.
The report did not say where the rest of the material was. But it appeared to confirm the U.S. official's description of the material being somewhere in the conversion line. That's because the figures provided by the IAEA indicated it was not added to Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium.