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Iran Expands Nuclear Enrichment

World Condemns Iran's Defiance Over Nuclear Program

The international community has sharply condemned Iran for announcing on Monday, its "National Day of Nuclear Technology", that it had begun industrial-scale nuclear fuel production. The move is a fresh snub to the UN Security Council.

Iran's "National Day of Nuclear Technology" didn't give the international community much to celebrate this year. Russia called Iran's announcement that it had begun industrial-scale nuclear fuel production a "provocation," the United States said it was a further sign of Iran's defiance of the international community, and the United Nations urged Iran to engage in dialogue.

Tehran on Monday announced it had achieved a major expansion of uranium enrichment and begun operating 3,000 centrifuges -- nearly 10 times the previously known number -- in defiance of UN demands it halt its nuclear program or face increased sanctions.

"I proudly announce that as of today Iran is among the countries which produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a gathering at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran.

Ahmadinejad said Iran would not bow to pressure to stop its atomic work, which he insisted was a right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The West says Iran must prove its program has no military aims.

"Iran has so far moved in a completely peaceful path and wants to continue following this path, they should avoid doing something which forces this nation to review its behaviour," Ahmadinejad said.

Iran's announcement marks a shift from experimental atomic fuel work involving a few hundred centrifuges used for enriching uranium to a process that will involve thousands of machines. Western nations fear enrichment will bring Tehran closer to building atomic bombs. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, says it only wants the fuel to produce electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

US analysts say 3,000 centrifuges are in theory enough to produce sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon, perhaps even within a year. But they doubt Iran really has so many centrifuges in operation, which would be a difficult technical feat given the country's mixed record with a much smaller number.

Analysts say Iran has used such announcements of atomic progress in the past to strengthen its bargaining position with the West, but that such statements have often glossed over technical glitches they say have plagued Iran's nuclear work.

US "very concerned"

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Iran's announcement was "another signal that Iran is defying the international community." The White House said it was "very concerned."

The UN Security Council has passed two resolutions regarding sanctions on Iran since December, targeting its nuclear and military sectors and severely impeding its financial transactions with the outside world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he hoped Iran would "engage in dialogue. ... It is very important for any member country to fully comply with the Security Council resolution."

The move showed Iran was "definitively going in the wrong direction," said the Foreign Ministry in Germany, which currently holds the European Union presidency.

A foreign policy spokesman for Germany's ruling conservative Christian Democrats, Eckart von Klaeden, said Iran posed the biggest threat to international security.

Germany and NATO needed to step up talks on how to protect themselves, von Klaeden told Berlin radio station RBB. "That includes discussing with greater conviction the possibility of a new missile defence system within NATO," von Klaeden said.

"We have to realise that that we may not be able to reach our goal with the steps that we have undertaken against Iran so far," von Klaeden said. Tougher sanctions may be needed and the West needed to start thinking how it plans to deal with an Iran that has nuclear weapons, von Klaeden said.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, warned that if the UN imposes further sanctions, Iran may reconsider how much it cooperates with the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The IAEA has been conducting inspections at a number of Iran's nuclear sites.

Larijani repeated Iran's stance that it was open to negotiations with the West and was willing to offer assurances that its intentions are peaceful. But he added that the West must accept that its nuclear program is a fact and rejected halting enrichment as a precondition for talks.

The United States and others have insisted they will not negotiate until Tehran suspends enrichment.

cro/Reuters/AP