Azerbaijan, Baku, February 8 /Trend News, E.Ostapenko/

Technically, Iran could bring the enrichment of its uranium to 20 percent during the year. However, the statements by the Iranian authorities regarding their intention to start pre-enrichment is rather feeling out of position than making decision, says Russia's leading analyst on Iran, Vladimir Yevseyev.

"Given Iran's provocative policies, we can assume that this is element of informational pressure, a kind of sounding positions, Yevseyev told Trend News by telephone from Moscow. Iran carries out probing."

The government of Iran is going to start uranium enrichment program from the current 5 percent to 20 percent at the Natanz plant from February 9, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on Sunday. The decree on the development of 20-percent enriched uranium was made by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

According to Yevseyev, it is very hard and long to enrich uranium from its natural level of 0.7 percent to 3.5 percent, then the process goes faster and faster. There are some technical difficulties, but this problem can be solved.

To bring five percent uranium to 90 percent needed for nuclear weapons, Iran needs about a year, considering the number of its centrifuges and all stages of the process, said Yevseyev, senior fellow at the Center for International Security at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations of Russian Academy of Sciences..

"It needs to work out the enrichment technology at every level. If the technology is perfected, it is possible to make even not 90 percent, but 80 percent, which is considered sufficient for the production of nuclear weapons," he said.

However, the statements by the Iranian president should not be accepted seriously, said Yevseyev, because Iran is trying to simply prolong the time.

In late October last year, the IAEA suggested Iran to export 1.2 tons (some 70 percent of accumulated in Iran) of low-enriched uranium to Russia for pre-enrichment and the onward production of fuel in France for the Tehran research reactor. However, Tehran offers its own plan according to which the exchange should take place in phases (consignments of 300-400 kg) and simultaneously (that is, Iran should receive 20-percent enriched uranium immediately, rather than waiting for the pre-enrichment of 3.5 percent Iranian uranium abroad).

In addition, a long time, Iranian officials have insisted that the exchange was conducted on the territory of Iran, in particular it proposed the Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. However, in the beginning of last week, Ahmadinejad said that he sees no "significant difficulties" of whether the exchange is made in Iran or outside, "in the case of signing the contract."

Iran's actions are illogical, Yevseyev said. They are simply trying to gain time and get more or less soft report of the new Director General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano, who replaced Mohammed ElBaradei, who led the IAEA over 12 years, in this post last December. The report by Amano is expected in February.