Iran Declares Major Milestone in Uranium Program

Iran can enrich uranium at an industrial level, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared today at the nation’s enrichment facility at Natanz.  The announcement appeared to show Iran’s resolve not to bend to U.N. powers in the continuing nuclear crisis, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 6).

“With great honor, I declare that as of today our dear country has joined the nuclear club of nations and can produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale,” Ahmadinejad said.

One year ago, Iran announced that it had finished installing its first “cascade” of 164 centrifuges at the underground site.  Officials later set a goal of installing 3,000 centrifuges by May (see GSN, April 12).  That would be enough to produce material for one weapon each year, though Iran says its intentions are peaceful.

A nuclear official yesterday confirmed that uranium gas had been introduced into the existing cascades, AP reported (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, April 9).

“Now we are entering the mass production of centrifuges and starting to launch industrial scale enrichment, another step toward the flourishing of Islamic Iran,” said Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press II/myfoxtampabay.com, April 9).

A third Iranian official urged the U.N. Security Council to back away from pressuring Iran.  The council since December has twice imposed economic sanctions and has threatened to ramp up measures if Tehran refuses to freeze its enrichment program.

“If they continue to pressure Iran over its peaceful nuclear activities, we have no other choice but to follow parliament’s order and review our membership of the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty],” said lead Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani (Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, April 9).

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