By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has begun enriching uranium at a purity level of twenty percent. The state-run media in Iran reported on February 9 that the increase in purity allows for the production of a higher grade of nuclear fuel. This action was defiance of many Western countries who remain concerned that Iran’s ultimate goal with their nuclear program is the ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.
An unnamed Iranian official told Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam channel that “Today (Iran) started to make twenty percent enriched nuclear fuel…in the presence of IAEA inspectors at Natanz.” Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, announced that the government informed the UN’s atomic watchdog that would begin enrich the fuel at the higher level.
This announcement from Iran was met with calls from the United States and its allies for the imposition of stronger UN sanctions against Iran over it’s nuclear program. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained that “the only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together.” A spokesman for the US State Department, PJ Crowley, did make it clear that the US government had “no interest in creating additional hardships on the Iranian people.”
The enriching of uranium to twenty percent does not by itself produce nuclear fuel that could be easily used in a bomb. The level of uranium enrichment that is required for a nuclear weapon is ninety percent. The concern from Western countries lies with the fact that the technological jump to get from twenty percent to ninety percent is fairly straightforward.
Iran’s top nuclear official, Ali Akba Salehi, also said that the Iranian government would build ten new enrichment plants next year. This is despite the fact that there are still problems with its first one. The United States and its allies, in response to this news, said that the time had come “fore the adoption of strong sanctions.” The UN Security Council has already imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in response to it’s uranium enrichment activities.
For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Iran ‘Begins Advanced Enrichment’ – 9 February 2010
BBC – Iran ‘Starts Enriching Nuclear Fuel to 20%’ at Natanz – 9 February 2010
New York Times – Small Step in Iran’s Nuclear Effort Suggests Ambitions for a Weapon, Experts Say – 9 February 2010
Voice of America – Iran Defies West, Begins Boosting Uranium – 9 February 2010
