Iran starts processing nuclear fuel towards weapons-grade strength

Times Online 02/09/2010 02:06

Iran today started to enrich its existing nuclear fuel stockpile towards weapons grade strength. The move caused international alarm and gave new impetus to Western calls for new sanctions on Tehran despite opposition from China, which insists that negotiations could still succeed.

"Today we started to make 20 per cent enriched nuclear fuel... in the presence of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors at Natanz," an unnamed official told Iran's Arabic-language state television, al Alam.

A spokesman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Shirzadian, confirmed that "preparatory work" had started at 9.30am (0600 GMT) and that production would formally get under way at about 1pm local time.

Iran’s announcement is the latest twist of the UN-backed uranium swap deal.

Iran was required to ship out three quarters of its low-enriched uranium stocks — at a purity of 3.5 per cent — in return for an equivalent amount of 20 per cent enriched uranium in the form of French-made fuel rods to be used in a research reactor to produce medical isotopes.

Iran in effect pronounced the deal dead yesterday, warning the IAEA that it intended to begin the high-enrichment itself, taking it closer to the 90 per cent weapons-grade uranium required for a nuclear bomb. This morning it put that that threat into action.

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