Iran’s Ahmadinejad orders production of higher-enriched uranium

Iran’s leader orders further enrichment of uranium

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country’s atomic agency on Sunday to begin enriching uranium to a higher level, a move that’s likely to deepen international suspicion over the country’s intentions for its nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad’s latest pronouncement on the issue of enriched uranium coincided with a call Sunday by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for the international community to rally together to pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear program.

Speaking to reporters during a weeklong European tour, Gates said that “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure” on Iran, “I believe there is still time for sanctions to work.”

He declined to be specific about the type of sanctions he had in mind, but explained that the focus should be on putting pressure on the government in Tehran and not hurting the people.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union show brodcast Sunday that increasingly other nations were beginning to see Iran’s nuclear program as a threat.

“The rest of the world has really begun to see Iran the way we see it,” she said.

In comments broadcast on state television, Ahmadinejad said: “God willing, 20 percent enrichment will start” to meet Iran’s needs. He did not give a date for the start of the enrichment process.

While the 20 percent threshhold is substantially below the 90 percent plus needed to make fissile warhead material, any move by Iran to enrich to 20 percent would raise international alarm bells because it would bring Iran substantially closer to weapons capacity.

That is because enriching from 20 percent to weapons grade can be done much more quickly and with much less equipment than from the low-enriched stockpile Iran now posesses.

David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks suspected proliferators, said that it would take 2,000 centrifuges about a year to turn Iran’s 1.8 ton stockpile of 3.5 percent uranium into enough weapons grade uranium for one warhead. But he said it would only take 500 to 1,000 centrifuges, and half a year, to move from 20 percent to 90 percent plus enriched material.

By enriching its present 3.5 percent uranium stockpile to 20 percent, “it would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium,” he said.

Ahmadinejad was speaking at a meeting attended by the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi.

Turning to Salehi, Ahmadinejad said: “Mr. Salehi, begin production of 20 percent” enriched uranium.

Producing enriched uranium is the international community’s core concern over Iran’s disputed nuclear program since it can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

Iran and the West have been discussing a U.N. plan under which Iran would export its low-enriched uranium for enrichment abroad. The plan, which comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency, was first drawn up in early October in a meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers. It was refined later that month in Vienna talks among Iran, the U.S., Russia and France.

The Vienna talks came up with a draft proposal that would take 70 percent of Iran’s low-enriched uranium to reduce its stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level, and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons. That uranium would be returned about a year later as refined fuel rods, which can power reactors but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.

In what was interpreted to be a possible shift of policy on a major issue, Ahmadinejad said last week he was ready to export his country’s low-enriched uranium for higher enrichment abroad, saying Iran had “no problem” with the plan. Sunday’s comments, however, appeared to justify the skepticism with which his Tuesday’s comments were met by world leaders.

Salehi, the head of the Iranian atomic energy agency, later appeared to play down the significance of Ahmadinejad’s comments. He told the official IRNA news agency the president was giving a “preparedness order” so Iran would be ready to enrich its uranium if the exchange with the West fails to take place.

He said the higher enrichment would be carried out in facilities in the central Iranian town of Natanz.

Ahmadinejad on Sunday made no mention of his own announcement on the issue last week, saying only that Iran remained ready to have “interaction” with the West over providing fuel to Iran “without condition.”

But a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said Sunday that 20 percent uranium enrichment for use by Tehran’s research reactor was within the country’s right as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. The uranium enrichment will be carried out under IAEA supervision, he said.

The enrichment, he added, would not affect Iran’s readiness to swap its low enriched uranium for higher enriched one.

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad said Iran has acquired laser technology for enrichment of uranium, but added, “For now, we do not intend to use it.” He did not say why.

Iran’s ambivalence over the enrichment issue comes at a time when the United States and its Western allies have been pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions to be slapped on Iran over its disputed nuclear program. But with Russia, and especially China, skeptical of any new U.N. penalties, they have to tread carefully to maintain six power unity on how to deal with the Islamic Republic.

International concerns include Iran’s refusal to heed U.N. Security Council demands that it freeze its enrichment program; fears that it may be hiding more nuclear facilities after its belated revelations that it was building a secret fortified enrichment plant, and its stonewalling of an IAEA probe of alleged programs geared to developing nuclear arms.

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Associated Press writer Anne Flaherty in Rome and George Jahn in Vienna have contributed to this report.