Iran officially confirmed it has stepped up uranium enrichment by injecting gas into a second network of centrifuges, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday.
The gas injection marked Iran's first known uranium enrichment since February. The process can either yield nuclear fuel or material for a warhead, but doesn't represent a major technological breakthrough and is unlikely to bring Iran within grasp of a weapon.
However, Tehran's announcement signaled the Islamic Republic's resolve to expand its atomic program at a time of divisions within the UN Security Council over a punishment for Iran's defiance.
"We have exploited products from both cascades," the Iran Daily newspaper quoted Mohammad Ghannad, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, as saying yesterday. "The second one was installed in the past two weeks."
Ghannad said both cascades were enriching uranium by 3 to 5 percent, enough for industrial use but not for weapons. "This experience will help Iranian engineers get closer to industrial uranium enrichment," he said.
IAEA visit
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been aware of the second cascade for the past five months, Ghannad said. "IAEA inspectors visited the cascades in Natanz last week," he said.
Washington has long pushed for sanctions against Iran for its failure to stop enriching uranium -- a process Tehran says aims only to generate electricity and others suspect is a cover for building nuclear arms.
Russia and China, with strong commercial ties to Tehran, have shied away from punitive measures and left the door open to last-minute talks.
All three, plus France and Britain, have veto power on the Security Council, which is now weighing a draft resolution that would impose limited sanctions on Iran.
Enriched uranium
Iran touted its ability to enrich uranium last February, when it produced a small batch of low-enriched uranium using a first set of 164 centrifuges at its pilot complex in Natanz.
While no experiments to enrich more uranium had been announced since, Tehran insists it never halted the process despite Western demands, and defiantly bypassed an Aug. 31 deadline to do so.
"Iran more likely slowed down the development program over the summer as part of a diplomatic strategy to persuade the world that it would not be nearing nuclear weapons capability any time soon," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"Now that the Security Council is taking up a sanctions resolution, Iran has started the second cascade as a political signal to show that it does not give in to pressure," he said.
In Washington, US President George W. Bush insisted the US would not stand for a nuclear-armed Iran.
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