Iran Says It's Making Fuel-Grade Uranium

Iran Says It's Making Fuel-Grade Uranium

Apr 11 - Daily Breeze

By Nazila Fathi and Christine Hauser

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said Monday that his country has started to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, and had reached the next phase of what he described as an irreversible program that his country had a right to pursue.

Ahmadinejad noted in his remarks that Monday's announcement came almost exactly a year after he declared that Iran's nuclear engineers had, in laboratory tests, succeeded in enriching uranium to the level desired for nuclear power plants. Since then, global concerns have increased that Iran may be on its way to producing nuclear-weapons-grade enriched uranium as well, an intention Iran has denied.

"Today we have announced a national day of nuclear technology," he said. "In the past year, with continuous efforts, Iran has succeeded in the nuclear fuel cycle development to attain production at an industrial level. With great pride I announce, as of today, our dear country Iran is among the countries of the world that produces an industrial level of nuclear fuel."

Ahmadinejad, speaking at Natanz in west-central Iran, where the country's main enrichment facility is located, also reiterated that his country's nuclear program was intended for peaceful purposes and development, using technology that he said other countries already enjoyed and that Iran had the right to use as well.

Achieving large-scale uranium enrichment would be a major milestone for Iran, and one that the U.N. nuclear oversight agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, would expect to be informed about.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday that the country's efforts had reached that level. "We have started producing enriched uranium on an industrial scale," Aghazadeh said. "That means we have passed the experimental stage and have entered a new phase."

Iran's top international negotiator on nuclear issues, Ali Larijani, replied "yes" on Monday when reporters asked him whether Iran had begun injecting uranium gas into the 3,000 centrifuges that were being installed at the Natanz facility.

On March 24, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose new sanctions on Iranian arms exports, on the state-owned Bank Sepah and on the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The United States and other countries have charged that Iran is secretly trying to develop fuel for nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

Ahmadinejad said the "great Iranian nation would review and revise its behavior" if it was put under pressure, and that the Iranians would defend its right to a chosen path of cooperation, apparently addressing efforts that have taken "illegal actions" to undermine it, such as those of the Security Council.