Iran has managed to enrich uranium up to 4,8% purity, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Tuesday, as envoys of the main world powers met in Paris to discuss how to halt the sensitive nuclear fuel work.
”The latest level of enrichment carried out in Iran has been 4,8%,” Gholam Reza Aghazadeh told the Isna student news agency.
”Enrichment of more than five percent is not on Iran’s agenda and this level suffices for making nuclear fuel.”
Iran had already announced last month that it had enriched uranium to 3,6% purity, sufficient to produce reactor fuel. The process of enriching uranium though cascades of centrifuges lies at the centre of international concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.
When extended to much higher levels of purity of more than 90%, it can produce the fissile core of an atom bomb, although Iran insists it is only interested in producing fuel for civilian nuclear reactors.
Aghazadeh reiterated that Iran plans to upgrade its enrichment facilities.
”Construction work and preparation of centrifuge machines are being done to create a 3 000-centrifuge cascade,” he said.
At present Iran is using a cascade of 164 centrifuges installed at a pilot plant in Natanz.
The new announcement from Iran came as envoys from Britain, China, France, Gerany, Russia and the United States gathered in Paris to thrash out a common position on how to tackle Iranian defiance over its nuclear programme. – AFP
