Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that his
country will soon start producing nuclear fuel for industrial uses,
the official IRNA news agency reported.
"Iran has access to full nuclear fuel cycle and we will soon
push the button on nuclear fuel production for industrial uses,"
Ahmadinejad told a public gathering in Gatvand in Khuzestan
province.
"The Iranians are determined to achieve peaks of success and
defend its interests powerfully," he said.
He insisted that all nations, including Iran, deserve to access
peaceful nuclear technology and Iranians "call for nothing but
their rights."
"The bullying powers are seeking hegemony over the whole world
and ... they should give up in the face of the Iranian people and
officially recognize our rights," he said.
His remarks showed Iran's latest rejection of UN Security
Council Resolution 1737 which was adopted unanimously on Dec. 23,
2006 and imposed sanctions against Iran for its failure to suspend
uranium enrichment.
Uranium enrichment at low levels can be used to produce fuel to
generate electricity but at higher levels can be used to make
atomic bombs. Iran has already claimed that it has enriched uranium
to levels of around 5 percent.
Iran said in October that it had assembled a second line, or
cascade of 164 centrifuges, and used the units to enrich
uranium.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi said last month that
Iran's first step toward producing nuclear fuel on industrial scale
would start during the Ten-Day Dawn celebrations in February.
Iran holds the Ten-Day Dawn celebrations on Feb. 1-10 every year
to mark the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials have said that Iran plans to install 3,000
uranium enrichment centrifuges at its enrichment plant in Natanz in
central Iran by the end of the current Iranian year, which will end
on March 20, 2007.
According to Iran's announced plan, it will eventually have
60,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, says it needs to
enrich uranium as a peaceful, alternative energy source and has the
right to do so under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT).
However, the West accuses Iran of trying to produce nuclear
weapons under a civilian cover, a charge denied by Tehran.
(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2007)
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