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Vienna, Austria: Iran has met a key demand of the UN nuclear agency, handing over long-sought blueprints showing how to mold uranium metal into the shape of warheads, diplomats said on Tuesday.
Iran's decision to release the documents, which were seen by UN inspectors two years ago, was seen as a concession designed to head off the threat of new UN sanctions.
But the diplomats said Tehran has failed to meet other requests made by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its attempts to end nearly two decades of nuclear secrecy on the part of Iran.
The agency has been seeking possession of the blueprints since 2005, when it stumbled upon them among a batch of other documents during its examination of suspect Iranian nuclear activities.
While agency inspectors had been allowed to examine them in the country, Tehran had up to now refused to let the IAEA have a copy for closer perusal.
Iran maintains it was given the papers without asking for them during its black market purchases of nuclear equipment decades ago that now serve as the backbone of its program to enrich uranium -- a process that can generate both power or create the fissile core of nuclear warheads.
Iran's refusal to suspend enrichment has been the main trigger for both existing UN sanctions and the threat of new ones.
Both the IAEA and other experts have categorized the instructions outlined in the blueprints as having no value outside of a nuclear weapons program.
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