Iran to build 10 nuke enrichment sites within one year

Tehran, Feb 8 (DPA) Iran claimed that it would build 10 new enrichment sites within one year, the state media reported Monday.

The head of the Iranian Atomic Organisation, Ali-Akbar Salehi, said the new sites would be built within the next Persian year which starts March 21.

The government announced last year that the country needed 10 new enrichment sites to meet its needs, but so far only five sites have been chosen.

Salehi also said late Sunday that he would follow an order by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and officially inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday about Iran's decision to begin enriching uranium to up to 20 percent.

The process would begin Tuesday at the Natanz enrichment plant in central Iran in presence of IAEA inspectors, he added.

Salehi said the 20-percent enriched uranium for a medical reactor in Tehran had been sought from abroad, but the lack of an agreement with global nuclear powers had forced the country to do the enrichment by itself.

Iran wavered several times on a deal brokered by the IAEA in October which envisaged Iran ship its uranium, enriched to about 3.5 percent, to Russia and France for further enrichment and fabricated into nuclear fuel.

"We are still ready to make the exchange deal," he said. "And whenever an agreement is made and as soon as we receive the fuel from abroad, we will stop the enrichment process."

Contradictory remarks came from the Foreign Ministry spokesman, who said Ahmadinejad's order to start 20-percent uranium enrichment had nothing to do with the fuel swap deal.

Ramin Mehmanparast told the official news agency IRNA that Iran was still eager to either purchase, exchange or produce the required 20-percent enriched uranium for the Tehran reactor or "follow up all the three options simultaneously".

But he added that due to growing global demand for nuclear fuel, Iran's future fuel needs would exceed the current quantity and the country should use all its potential to produce the fuel by itself.

Mehmanparast also said Iran's final aim is to build 20 nuclear power plants to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity.