Tehran, Iran ? Iran is producing fuel rods for nuclear reactors, state radio reported Thursday in the government’s latest attempt to boost a nuclear program that world powers are trying to curb.

Power-control rods, or fuel rods, contain low-enriched uranium and are inserted into a nuclear reactor’s core to make the reactor run.

The report said the Iranian-produced rods were in use in a 5-megawatt reactor built by the United States – before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution – at the nuclear research center in Tehran.

Enriched uranium can be used in the production of nuclear energy or weapons. Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, insists its nuclear program is aimed only at producing electricity.

But the United States, France and Britain are pressing for a U.N. Security Council resolution that would demand Iran abandon uranium enrichment.