It is no longer a threat; it is now a pro-mise. Iran has told Britain, France and Germany, the three countries trying to talk it out of producing uranium and pluto-nium that could be used to fuel nuclear power reactors or misused to make bombs, that it will soon end the suspension of uranium-related work that it agreed to six months ago in Paris. Since that suspension was the Europeans' condition for talking in the first place, hopes that diplomacy might avert a confrontation over Iran's nuclear ambitions are also at the point of collapse. Iran's first step, it says, will be to resume work at its uranium-conversion plant at Isfahan, where natural uranium (yellow-cake) is turned into a gas that can then be spun in centrifuge machines to produce more usable uranium. If the Iranians go ahead, the Europeans will call an emergency meeting of the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN'S nuclear guardian. A very different diplomatic process will then be under way, one that could soon see Iran referred to the UN Security Council.
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