Iran

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TEHRAN - Iran announced had successfully enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel, a major breakthrough in its disputed atomic drive.
\"I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear technology. This is the result of the Iranian nation's resistance,\" Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday.

\"Based on international regulations, we will continue our path until we achieve production of industrial-scale enrichment,\" he told officials and some ambassadors from regional states gathered in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

The United Nations has said Iran must halt uranium enrichment, a process Western nations fear Tehran wants to master so that it can develop nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its aims are entirely peaceful.

The United States warned that Iran's latest declared nuclear advance could accelerate international pressures on Tehran.

\"If the regime continues to move in the direction that it is currently, then we will be talking about the way forward with the other members of the (U.N.) Security Council and Germany about how to address this going forward,\" White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The State Department said it was unable to confirm Iran's announcement and some experts said even if Tehran's assertions were accurate, it would still be years before the Islamic state was able to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran's Atomic Energy Organization head said earlier that Iran had enriched uranium to a level used in power plants, a major step forward in the country's nuclear program.

\"I am proud to announce that we have started enriching uranium to the 3.5 percent level,\" Gholamreza Aghazadeh said, adding that the pilot enrichment plant in Natanz, south of Tehran, was now working.

SETBACK TO SECURITY COUNCIL EFFORTS

Iran's announcement is a serious setback to U.N. Security Council efforts to have Tehran halt enrichment work and it could escalate a confrontation with Western powers leading to consideration of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
The Security Council has demanded Iran shelve enrichment activity and on March 29 it asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to report on its compliance in 30 days.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran later this week to seek full Iranian cooperation with the Council and IAEA inquiries. The announcement of advances in enrichment work casts an embarrassing cloud over that trip.

The IAEA had no immediate comment.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, has one nuclear power plant under construction but has plans for more. It says it needs to make its own nuclear fuel to secure supply and has rejected U.N. demands to stop enrichment.

The high-profile announcement about Iran's nuclear achievements when tensions with the West are already high, puzzled some analysts. But they said it could be grandstanding ahead of a possible softer approach to follow.

\"They can say, 'we reached our rights, we reached our goals and it is not necessary to continue any more because we are able to do the job.' This is my guess,\" political analyst Saeed Laylaz said.

A Western diplomat said it was possible Iran was \"putting on this drama to step back,\" but said this was still speculation. \"It's totally the wrong signal,\" the diplomat added.

Reflecting anxiety about the nuclear dispute, investors shifted into the safe-haven Swiss franc after Iran's announcement, traders said. The nuclear dispute has also been a factor helping to push up oil prices to record levels.

Shortly before Ahmadinejad spoke on Tuesday, influential former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA that Iran was producing enriched uranium from a cascade of 164 centrifuges.

The IAEA referred Iran to the Council in February for failing to convince much of the international community that its nuclear work aims to generate only electricity.

The level of enrichment needed to trigger the nuclear chain reaction that detonates bombs is far higher than the 3.5 percent Iran says it reached. But even word that low-level enrichment is under way will be unacceptable to Western powers, diplomats say.


It would take Iran years to yield enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb with such a small cascade. But Iran has told the IAEA it will start installing 3,000 centrifuges later this year, enough to produce material for a warhead in a year.