Iran has begun operating a facility for converting uranium, a key step towards enriching it for use as fuel or in a nuclear bomb, a spokeswoman for the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was nothing controversial about the plant's opening and Tehran has said its nuclear program is solely for the peaceful generation of electricity.
"We were informed in February that they were going to start uranium conversion at Isfahan in March," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said, adding that agency inspectors had arrived in Iran and would examine the site this week.
"Conversion activities were not subject to suspension," Fleming said.
"Iran has told us it has been operating on the basis of a test run," she added.
Iran first pledged to suspend activities related to uranium enrichment last November as a goodwill gesture while under intense US pressure to prove it was not seeking nuclear weapons.
Last month Iran promised to suspend all "remaining enrichment activities" after Tehran sparked a row by interpreting the suspension in the narrowest possible sense.
Uranium conversion plants are key to the enrichment process. They convert uranium oxide concentrate into uranium hexafluoride gas, which is placed in centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium.
"We are planning to inspect the Isfahan site this week," Fleming said. "The inspectors have arrived in Iran and they have already begun their work."
Tehran delayed the inspections in retaliation against a harshly-worded resolution on the Islamic republic.
The agency's inspectors had originally planned to leave for Iran on March 12 to visit Natanz and Isfahan, but Tehran cancelled the visit in response to an IAEA Board of Governors resolution, then in draft form. The Iranians later relented and said the IAEA could return on March 27.
The resolution, passed on March 13, "deplores" Iran's failure to inform the IAEA of potentially arms-related research, such as work on "P2" uranium-enrichment centrifuges, capable of making bomb-grade uranium.
Meanwhile, Iran has set up a secret government committee overseeing efforts to conceal key elements of the country's nuclear program from international inspectors, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.
Citing unnamed Western diplomats and an intelligence report, the newspaper said that if the cover-up is confirmed, it would bolster the US assertion that Iran is trying to hide a secret nuclear weapons program.
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