Iran Announces Plans for Highly Enriched Uranium

James Phillips / February 08, 2010

Iran’s government announced that it was pushing ahead with plans to enrich uranium to 20 percent levels, ostensibly to fuel a research reactor.

The latest Iranian zig zag came only days after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that Iran was open to a deal on exchanging some of its stockpile of low enriched uranium for fuel for a research reactor that the United Nations offered last year. Ahmadinejad suggested that he had made the decision to escalate Iran’s enrichment efforts because western powers failed to accept Iran’s counter-offer: “We gave them two-to-three months’ time for such a deal. They started a new game and now I (ask) Dr Salehi to start work on the production of 20 percent fuel using centrifuges.” Salehi was in the audience at the ceremony.

Iranian nuclear official Ali Asghar Soltanieh today told the Associated Press that Tehran will shortly begin to further enrich some of its 1.8 ton stockpile of low enriched uranium to produce fuel for a research reactor that it claims produces medical isotopes. Such a step would also bring Iran much closer to producing more highly enriched uranium that could be used to arm a nuclear weapon. (more…)