It's nice to see that not just Le Monde is reporting that Iran is enriching uranium for use in power stations, but Reuters has (mildly) as well.
The revelations came one week after Iran announced it had enriched uranium for use in power stations for the first time, stoking a diplomatic row over Western suspicions of a covert Iranian atomic bomb project. Iran says it seeks nuclear power.
Le Monde Diplomatique went into much more detail about how signatories to the non proliferation treaty have a right to enrich uranium for nuclear power purposes (which is what Iran is doing)
First, we should note the technical details of the nuclear fuel cycle. Uranium is sold all over the world as yellowcake, which typically contains 70%-90% uranium oxide. It is then purified to obtain uranium hexafluoride. Iran already carries out these transformations under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The final stage is known as enrichment, a process that generates a sufficient amount (3%) of one isotope, uranium 235, to produce nuclear power. To be used in a weapon, the proportion has to reach 90% U-235. Article IV of the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (better known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT) guarantees the “inalienable right of all the parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”. Signatory countries have the right to enrich uranium.
After Tehran agreed to implement the NPT’s additional protocol (which allows the IAEA to carry out more intrusive inspections), an IAEA report did find that Iran had failed in the past to report “nuclear material, its processing and use, as well as the declaration of facilities where such material had been processed and stored”. But subsequent IAEA reports stated that Iran had taken “corrective actions” about many of the failures, and that “good progress has been made in Iran’s correction of breaches”. The remaining unresolved issues would be “followed up as a routine safeguard implementation matter”. The Iranians blame US obstructionism for making them resort to secrecy in obtaining technology to which they were entitled under the NPT (6).
In March 2005 the New York Times reported that an intelligence review commission report to President Bush had described US intelligence on Iran as “inadequate to allow firm judgments about Iran’s weapons programs” (8). Despite almost three years of intensive inspections under the additional protocol, the IAEA has yet to find any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iran.
Iran presents a convenient opportunity to set a precedent to be used against other aspirants for nuclear power in the developing world. That is why Ahmadinejad was denounced as an uncompromising hardliner in the coverage of his UN presentation. But he did in fact suggest a compromise deal. While defending Iran’s sovereign right to produce nuclear power using indigenously enriched uranium, and enumerating the reasons why Iran cannot rely on promises of foreign-supplied reactor fuel to power its economy, he proposed to operate Iran’s enrichment programme as joint ventures with private and public sector firms from other countries, to ensure that the programme remained transparent and could not be secretly diverted for military purposes. This was no small offer. It closely resembled a proposal previously put to the IAEA by a committee of experts looking into the risk that nuclear technology developed for peaceful purposes might be diverted to non-peaceful uses (12).
Instead of discussing this proposal, or looking for any workable solution, US, Israeli and EU officials continue to insist that the only acceptable objective guarantee of non-proliferation is to close what they describe as the loophole in Article IV of the treaty. These countries want to see the article re-interpreted to deny developing nations the right to indigenous nuclear enrichment technology.
I know I'm pasting most of the damn article (can't do the whole thing without permission and the site is for those who are registered only- sorry). Really, it is worth reading to get a whole different perspective on the issue. Besides, it's nice to read real news instead of scary threat speak from the press-release readers.
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