Iran has enriched 17 kg of uranium to 20 per cent purity, a top official said on Wednesday, underscoring Tehran’s determination to push ahead with its nuclear programme despite new international sanctions. Iran’s enrichment activities are at the heart of its standoff with the West which fears it is seeking nuclear weapons capability.
Two weeks ago, the United Nations Security Council agreed to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran. Iran started refining uranium to 20 per cent purity — up from around five per cent previously — in February, saying it aimed to make fuel for a medical research reactor. The move alarmed the West as it was seen as a significant step towards making weapons-grade uranium, which is 90 per cent enriched. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and primarily aimed at electricity generation.
“We have already produced 17 kg of 20 per cent enriched uranium, and we have the ability to produce five kg each month but we do not rush,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency. “We do not want to produce anything which we do not need and we don’t want to convert all our uranium reserves to 20 per cent enriched uranium, so we produce 20 per cent of enriched uranium according to our needs.”
Mr Salehi told Reuters in February that the Tehran medical reactor required around 1.5 kg of fuel per month. By early April Iran had produced 5.7 kg, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London told Reuters that around 200 kg of 20 per cent enriched uranium, if further enriched, would be required to make a nuclear bomb.
Iran had hoped to avoid the latest sanctions by offering to send some of its low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad in return for higher grade fuel — enriched elsewhere — for the Tehran reactor, which makes isotopes for treating cancer.