By DPA,
Tehran : Iran has succeeded in producing its first batch of uranium enriched to 20 percent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday.
“I herewith tell you that we have succeeded in producing the first batch of the 20 percent uranium enrichment at the Natanz site and have delivered it to our scientists,” Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony in Tehran marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The higher enriched uranium is to be turn into fuel rods in the neighbouring Isfahan plant and eventually be used for the Tehran medical reactor. Iran began the process of enriching uranium from 3.5 percent to 20 percent Tuesday.
Ahmadinejad gave no further details on the new production.
Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were at the Natanz site to supervise the new enrichment process but have not yet confirmed that the enrichment has taken place, Iran said.
However, Iran started working on the process before IAEA inspectors arrived at the nuclear site and before they had time to set up a monitoring regime, an IAEA document said.
“Some 800,000 patients are dependent on the Tehran medical reactor, and we cannot wait for political agreements, and we have told you (the world powers) several times that if you agree with the deal, fine; if not, then we have to do the higher enrichment by ourselves,” Ahmadinejad said.
Iran had earlier said that it would run out of fuel for the reactor next year.
Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran would still be ready to export its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in exchange for fuel in line with a plan brokered in October by the IAEA.
“Whatever country comes forward for making this deal, either exchange or purchase, even the US, we are ready,” he said.
“We have no problems with exporting our LEU of 3.5 percent as we have the know-how and can produce it again anytime we want and in the near future even three times more than the current production,” Ahmadinejad added.
Western experts had argued that exporting the uranium was a confidence-building measure as it would reduce the amount left in Iran necessary to make a nuclear weapon, an assertion Ahmadinejad rejected.
“I do not know whether the leaders of the US, Britain and Germany are illiterate or just act so,” Ahmadinejad said. “Our whole production line is under the strict supervision of the IAEA. How can we build an atomic bomb in front of IAEA inspectors and cameras?”
He said that although Iran had the know-how to enrich uranium even to 80 percent, which is sufficient to make an atomic bomb, it had never been the country’s intention and not within the doctrine of the Islamic Republic.
“Unlike you (the world powers), we are no liars,” he charged. “If we wanted to make an atomic bomb, then we would have told you so, but we do not. And when we say we do not, then it also means that we do not.”