Iran stops uranium enrichment after deal

Iran has halted uranium enrichment as implementation of a deal to curb its nuclear programme got under way, Iranian state TV said.

Centrifuge cascades, interlinked networks of machines that enrich uranium - were disconnected at the Natanz nuclear plant, according to the broadcast.

With the equipment at the plant, 20 per cent enrichment can be attained which was close to the level needed for making a nuclear bomb.

The equipment was disconnected, reportedly in the presence of UN inspectors, as Tehran started fulfilling its obligations under the agreement reached with six world powers in Geneva last November.

Similar measures were carried out later at Fordo, another nuclear site in central Iran.

The action was confirmed by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to a report obtained by Reuters.

According to the official IRNA news agency, Iran had also started to part convert stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium to oxide to produce nuclear fuel.

Under the Geneva deal, Iran would get limited sanctions relief in return for lowering its nuclear ambitions.

The deal between Iran and the US, the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia had been signed after four days of negotiations and was  aimed at resolving a decade old stand-off between Tehran and the West.

Meanwhile, Dr Tzvi Fleischer, a senior analyst at the Autralia / Israel and Jewish Affairs council writes in Heral Sun: while the Geneva deal is expected to freeze Iran's nuclear progress for six months, even as a final agreement was discussed, it actually did not offer a genuine "freeze" on nuclear work, only a slowdown on the most important elements.

Moreover, it told Iran it was fine to keep enriching uranium, even though six legally binding UN Security Council Resolutions call for  Iran ending enrichment - which was not necessary for civilian nuclear power, but essential for nuclear weapons, writes Fleischer.

Further, Iran was at the nuclear threshold already, with at least four to five bombs worth of low-enriched uranium and 19,000 centrifuges to further enrich uranium to weapons grade when they were ready and under the deal Iran gets to keep all of that.

He further states that nuclear experts at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, point out that Iran can build the core of a nuclear bomb in about a month, with what it had already.

Additionally, the inspection elements in the deal were too weak to ensure Iran would not cheat, as it had with past nuclear obligations, by building secret facilities. Also the deal had little by way of promises as regards inspections related to Iran's illegal work on nuclear warheads and missiles to put them on.