Follow @Kalpoint_com

17 kg of 20 per cent enriched uranium ready: Tehran

Posted on: Thu June 24, 2010

TEHRAN: Iran said on Wednesday it has produced more than 17 kilogrammes of 20 per cent enriched uranium, as the nation s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei branded newly imposed sanctions a confused act.    

 We have so far produced more than 17 kilogrammes of 20 per cent enriched uranium and we can potentially produce five kilogrammes per month, Iran s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi told the ISNA news agency.    

World powers led by Washington want Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activity which they suspect masks a nuclear weapons drive, and on June 9 backed a UN Security Council resolution for a fourth set of sanctions on Tehran.    

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors as well as to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.     Salehi said Iran was not in a hurry to produce 20 per cent enriched uranium even if it can process five kilos every month.    

 We will adjust the production in a way that the workshop for making the fuel plates is equipped, he said, referring to fuel made from the 20 per cent enriched uranium and used to power a Tehran research reactor.    

Iran started producing 20 per cent enriched uranium in February on hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad s orders.    

World powers claim that the Islamic republic does not possess the technology required to convert the 20 per cent enriched uranium into fuel plates for powering the reactor. But Salehi said on June 16 that Iran has acquired the necessary technical expertise and by September next year the first batch of fuel plates will be ready.    

Ahmadinejad had ordered the refining of uranium to 20 per cent after a swap deal aimed at providing nuclear fuel to power the Tehran reactor and drafted by the UN atomic body last October hit deadlock.    

That deal envisaged Iran sending its the 1,200 kilos of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to five per cent purity to Russia and France for further refining to 20 per cent and later to be converted into fuel plates.    

The deal hit stalemate when both sides insisted on conditions unacceptable to the other.     Brazil and Turkey brokered a counter proposal in Tehran on May 17 under which Iran would send its LEU to Turkey in return for research reactor fuel to be supplied later.    

But the world powers cold-shouldered that proposal and voted through a fourth set of sanctions, which had the effect of further tightening financial and military restrictions on Tehran.    

Brazil s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said in Bulgaria on Wednesday he was aware that there were concerns expressed by the Vienna Group the United States, France and Russia over the May 17 fuel swap deal. I think now it is up to Iran to react to these, he told journalists.    

Salehi told ISNA: I am optimistic about an agreement with the Vienna group, but it may not happen soon. One should wait for a while.

Khamenei, Iran s all-powerful supreme leader, said on Wednesday the decision to impose new sanctions showed the helplessness of world powers.    

 Their confused acts to adopt the resolution and the unrealistic exaggeration of sanctions followed by half-baked military threats are indications of the helplessness of the arrogant order in facing the great and respectable movement in the Islamic world, state television quoted the all-powerful cleric as saying.    

The remarks were the first reaction to the new UN punitive measures by Khamenei, who also urged Iranians to maintain unity.    

 Today, my dear sisters and brothers, the country is in dire need of unity. I oppose any action and statement, even in good faith, that may cause division, Khamenei said. That is my viewpoint. We should establish unity.

Courtesy : The News