By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Between 90 and 100 kg of uranium has been enriched to 20 percent at a facility in the Iranian city of Natanz, the country’s news agency ISNA reported Monday.
According to Fereydoon Abbasi, who supervises Iran’s nuclear programme, the procedure was supervised by experts from the global nuclear watchdog IAEA.
A successful enrichment programme means Iran can abandon an earlier plan to give up its own low-enrichment uranium in exchange for highly enriched uranium supplied by other countries, Abbasi said.
“We produce our [reactor] fuel ourselves,” he added.
Uranium needs to be enriched to 85 percent to qualify for nuclear bomb production.
The exchange plan was agreed on in 2010 by Iran, Brazil and Turkey in a bid to convince the global community of the peaceful and controlled nature of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
It was never implemented due to a fresh round of anti-Iran sanctions introduced by the UN at the time.
Earlier in the day, a high-level delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Tehran for talks on nuclear issues.
The five-member delegation is led by IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts.
“We hope to have few days of good and constructive talks in Tehran,” Nackaerts said Sunday, adding that the meeting with Iranian authorities should yield “real results”.
Western powers and Israel suspect Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. However, Iran strongly denies this, saying its programme is of a civilian nature only.