By IANS
Tehran : Iran will continue its uranium enrichment despite nuclear fuel supplies from Russia, a Iranian Foreign Ministry official has said.
“The issue of suspending uranium enrichment is completely irrelevant and Iran has reiterated its stand on the issue several times earlier,” Mohammad Ali Hosseini, foreign ministry spokesman, said here Monday, official IRNA news agency reported.
“We have declared it for several times that setting preconditions such as suspension is totally out of question and we should continue our activities based on the realities,” Hosseini said.
“As for the supplies of nuclear fuel from Russia, we have a uranium enrichment centre in Natanz, which will provide nuclear fuel for all Iranian nuclear power plants. These nuclear power plants will be built in line with our 20-year plan,” Hosseini said.
Tehran has recently said it is to announce a tender for the construction of 19 more new nuclear plants of 1,000-mw power generation capacity each, the official said.
As per the agreement, Russia will continue supplying nuclear fuel to the plant till February 2008.
In Iran, the nuclear fuel will under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the spent fuel is to be re-exported to Russia for reprocessing and storage.