Iran Nuclear chief: New generation centrifuge ready by 2011 - Summary

Fri, 18 Dec 2009

Tehran - The new generation of Iran's uranium-enrichment centrifuges is to be ready by March 2011, the head of Iran's Atomic Organization said Friday. Ali Akbar Salehi told the Fars news agency that the new centrifuges - named IR3 and IR4 - were currently being produced and that after a test period, they would be ready for use by the end of the next Persian year in March 2011.

Iran has been planning since last year to upgrade the technology of its centrifuges to speed up its uranium enrichment.

Salehi said 6,000 centrifuges - believed to be mainly the older models - were now operating in a uranium-enrichment site in Natanz in central Iran.

He also said work on the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran would be finished by its Russian contractor within the next few months, adding that Norway and Japan offered to cooperate on security issues.

The Bushehr plant was supposed to be completed 10 years ago, but work was delayed by Russia for various reasons, including political considerations.

As Iran has no other partners for its nuclear projects, owing to international suspicion over its intentions, the Islamic state so far had to be patient with Moscow, but the Iranian parliament expressed doubt over Russia's sincerity to complete the plant.

According to Salehi, Japan however has stated its willingness to cooperate with Iran on nuclear technology.

Iran insists it has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear development as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and rejects Western charges that it is working on a secret nuclear program to make an atomic bomb.

However, its lack of transparency regarding its nuclear program and refusal to suspend uranium enrichment have led to several United Nations Security Council sanctions resolutions against the Islamic state.

In another interview with ISNA news agency reported, Salehi said that "Iran was still ready to take the path of understanding with the West" over the nuclear dispute.

"Some Western countries are unfortunately influenced by the international Zionist lobby," Salehi said, alleging interference from Iran's regional enemy Israel. "We however still hope that the wise part of the West will prevail over the less-wise part and avail itself of the opportunity (of continuing talks)."

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeid Jalili will visit Tokyo over the weekend and hold talks in his four-day visit with Japanese officials over both the nuclear dispute and future nuclear cooperation, Salehi said.

He added that Iran was still interested in implementing the IAEA brokered plan to send 3.5 per cent Iranian low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France to be enriched to 20 per cent to be eventually used as fuel for the Tehran medical reactor.

"Although we can do the 20 per cent enrichment by ourselves, we still prefer to buy it and we hope the West would get this message and avail itself of this opportunity (to settle the nuclear dispute)," Salehi said.

Iran says it has not rejected the initial plan but wants the swap to be made inside Iran, but both the IAEA and the world powers want to implement the initial IAEA plan and have given Iran until the end of the year.

"They (world powers) can give whatever deadline they want but they know well that Iran would not give in to any imposed time-limits," the atomic chief said, adding that neither sanctions nor military attacks would have any effect on Iran's decisions.