The Hindu : International : Iran expands uranium enrichment programme

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Sunday, Dec 10, 2006
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Iran expands uranium enrichment programme

Completion of fuel cycle likely by February

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that his country expanded its contentious uranium enrichment programme at a plant in central Iran, a semi-official news agency reported.

``We have started installing 3,000 centrifuges,'' Mr. Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

``This is the first step toward industrial production. We will be able to produce our nuclear fuel once we install 60,000 centrifuges,'' he said, speaking to a group of students in the Iranian capital. Mr. Ahmadinejad boasted last month that Iran would soon celebrate, probably in February, the completion of its nuclear fuel cycle programme — from mining uranium ore to enriching it.

The President also claimed that the international community was caving in to Tehran's demands to continue its nuclear programme.

"No backtracking"

``Resistance of the Iranian nation in the past year forced them to retreat tens of steps over the Iran's nuclear issue,'' the agency quoted Mr. Ahmadinejad as saying. Fars is considered to be close to Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards.

Iran has been locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear programme. The U.S. alleges that Tehran is secretly trying to develop atomic weapons, but Iran contends its programme is for peaceful purposes including generating electricity.

Iran said earlier this year that it intends to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, and then expand the programme to 54,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material to produce nuclear fuel.

Iranian nuclear officials say 54,000 centrifuges would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as the one Iran has built with Russian assistance at Bushehr, southern Iran. The reactor is due to come on stream next year.

Iran announced for the first time in February that it had enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, and it confirmed last month that it has stepped up uranium enrichment by injecting gas into a second network of centrifuges. Uranium enrichment at low levels can be used to produce fuel to generate electricity but at higher levels can be used to make atomic bombs.

Iran has said it will never give up its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to produce nuclear fuel. Officials have said they plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear energy in the next two decades. — AP

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