The Hindu : Front Page : Iran says it has enriched uranium

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Iran says it has enriched uranium

But rules out developing nuclear weapons

TEHERAN: Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest for developing nuclear fuel, hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday. He insisted that his country did not aim to develop nuclear weapons.

In a nationally televised speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad called on the West ``not to cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians'' by trying to force Iran to abandon uranium enrichment.

Iran has rejected the U.N. Security Council's demand that it stop all uranium enrichment activity by April 28, saying the country has a right to develop the process. The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, is due in Iran this week for talks to try to end the standoff.

``At this historic moment, with the blessings of God Almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants,'' Mr. Ahmadinejad said.

``I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries,'' he told an audience that included top military commanders and clerics in the holy city of Mashhad.

He said Iran wanted to operate its nuclear programme under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency and within its rights and regulations under the norms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Speaking before the President, Iran's nuclear chief, Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said the country had produced 110 tonnes of uranium gas, the feedstock that was pumped into centrifuges for enrichment. A report from Columbia, U.S., quoted a White House official as saying Iran was ``moving in the wrong direction.'' — AP

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