Iran makes 40 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium: Official
By IANSSaturday, January 8, 2011
TEHRAN - Iran has produced 40 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium for a nuclear reactor in Tehran, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced Saturday.
“We have produced about 40 kg of 20 percent (enriched) uranium and we hope to witness the injection of the first batch of Iran-made 20 percent fuel to the Tehran research reactor soon,” Salehi told the Fars news agency.
Salehi in June said that Iran is capable of producing five kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium every month.
He also said that Tehran was prepared to resume talks with the Vienna group (US, Russia, France and the International Atomic Energy Agency) on the nuclear fuel swap for the Tehran reactor.
He said: “More they (the West) delay in holding the talks with us, the more progress we make in fuel production and after a while the issue of fuel swap will become meaningless”.
Stressing that Iran is one of the few countries capable of producing fuel rods and plates to be used for peaceful purposes, Salehi said Iran’s progress in this area was a result of the West’s lack of cooperation and sanctions.
In April last year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the AEOI to start producing the fuel for supplying it to the Tehran reactor that produces radio-isotopes for medicinal use, the Fars news agency said.
