nuclear-news

Iran Plans High Level of Uranium Enrichment, NYT By DAVID JOLLY June 8, 2011 Iran declared Wednesday that it aims to triple production of nuclear fuel this year and, at a site that had been secret until 2009, increase enrichment to 20 percent. Enrichment at that level indicates technological progress that experts say would make the weapons-grade level of 90 percent enrichment much closer.

In the past, Iran has made similar claims, but its progress has been slow, in part because of United Nations-imposed sanctions that have made it difficult to get critical parts.

The news came in comments by the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Fereydoon Abbasi, to IRIB television after a cabinet meeting in Tehran, in which he said that some production would be transferred from the Natanz nuclear site to the Fordow site, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Iran only acknowledged the existence of the site, built underground in a mountain near the holy city of Qum, in September 2009, after Western spy agencies learned of it.

The Iranian announcement suggests that even while Iran goes through a public dispute within its leadership, it has no intention of yielding to demands from the Security Council that it halt all production of nuclear fuel. …..An I.A.E.A. official in Vienna said he knew of the reports, but declined to comment. Control of nuclear material is one of the cornerstones of the agency’s safeguards against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. — http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html