Iran has produced 17 kg of 20% enriched uranium

[Guest guest]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100623/world/iran_nuclear_politics_uranium

Iran has produced 17 kg of 20% enriched uranium

Module body

Wed Jun 23, 7:41 AM

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday that

Tehran has produced more than 17 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, a

sensitive atomic process that world powers want abandoned.

" We have so far produced more than 17 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium

and we can potentially produce five kilograms per month, " Salehi told the ISNA

news agency.

World powers led by Washington want Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment

activity which they suspect is masking a weapons drive. Tehran says its atomic

programme is geared entirely for peaceful purposes.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors as well as to

make the fissile core of an atom bomb.

Iran started producing 20 percent enriched uranium from February following an

order from hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Salehi said Iran was " not in a hurry " to produce 20 percent enriched uranium

even if it can process five kilograms of the material 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 percent

enriched uranium and used to power a Tehran research reactor.

World powers claim that Iran does not possess the technology required to convert

the 20 percent enriched uranium into actual fuel plates for powering the

reactor.

But Salehi said on June 16 that Iran has acquired the required 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 percent after a nuclear

fuel swap deal aimed at powering the Tehran reactor and drafted by UN atomic

body last October hit a deadlock.

That deal envisaged Iran sending its 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium --

five percent purity -- to Russia and France for further refining to 20 percent

and later to be converted into fuel plates for the Tehran reactor.

The deal hit a stalemate as both sides insisted on conditions unacceptable to

each 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 the Tehran research reactor fuel

to be supplied at a later date.

But the world powers have cold-shouldered that proposal and backed a resolution

in the UN Security Council to impose the fourth set of sanctions on Iran for

refusing to abandon the overall enrichment programme.

On June 9 the Security Council imposed the new financial and military punitive

measures against Iran.