Ahmadinejad hails new uranium enrichment process

Iran starting to enrich uranium to 20 per cent made many nations happy, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, DPA reported.

Iran on Tuesday started the new process at its Natanz enrichment plant, where a cascade of 164 centrifuges has been prepared to enrich the uranium from currently 3.5 per cent to 20 per cent.

"When this process started yesterday in Iran, it caused a wave of happiness among nations as they feel that any progress in Iran would also belong to them," ISNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying after the cabinet session in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad did not mention any country by name.

World powers, including Russia, have deplored the Iranian decision to increase the enrichment level to 20 per cent and warned of renewed sanctions against the Islamic state.

Experts warned that enriching uranium to 20 per cent would bring Iran a crucial step closer to achieving the capability to produce weapons-grade uranium. Iran maintains its nuclear programmes are solely geared towards peaceful purposes.

Iran's atomic chief Ali-Akbar Salehi said Wednesday that the new enrichment process was running properly and as planned, adding that it could produce 3 to 5 kilograms of 20-per-cent uranium per month.

He said the enriched uranium would be transferred to the neighbouring Isfahan nuclear plant to be turned into fuel rods for use in the Tehran medical reactor.

Salehi said the higher-grade enrichment would be stopped as soon as an agreement was reached with the world powers to swap Iran's low-enriched uranium for 20-per-cent enriched uranium via Russia and France.

Both Salehi and Ahmadinejad said that the deal, initially brokered last October by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was still on the table.

However, Iran would not accept any political games as the Tehran reactor was essential for radiotherapy treatment of cancer patients, the stressed.

Unlike similar occasions in previous years, Iran kept Tuesday's ceremony comparatively low profile. Apparently only state-run television was present at the site, but it aired brief footage of what was supposed to be the start of the process.

A spokesman at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna confirmed that the agency's inspectors were present in Natanz, explaining they had already been there for a routine visit.

However, he said the IAEA would not comment on the new activities in Natanz.