Ahmadinejad opens atomic fuel plant

Tehran: Iran on Thursday declared major advances in its controversial nuclear drive as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened an atomic fuel plant and announced the testing of two high capacity centrifuges.

Ahmadinejad's announcements at a function in central Isfahan province marking national nuclear day are likely to trigger fresh concerns among world powers, who fear Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at making atomic weapons.

Tehran insists its programme is for peaceful purposes only.

Ahmadinejad said Iran had notched up two achievements - the manufacture of nuclear fuel and "testing of two kinds of new centrifuges having greater capacity (to enrich uranium) than the existing ones."

He was speaking after cutting the ribbon at the fuel facility in Isfahan, which the Iranian news agency Mehr said can produce 10 tonnes of nuclear fuel annually to feed the heavy water 40-megawatt Arak reactor as well as 30 tonnes for light water reactors such as the Bushehr nuclear plant.

The opening of the fuel plant indicates that Iran has now mastered the complete nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to enrichment.

"Today the nuclear fuel cycle has been practically completed and there is no room for the idea of halting (uranium) enrichment in the negotiations" with global powers, the head of Iran's parliamentary commission of national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Borujerdi said.

Speaking at the same function, Iran's atomic chief Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said Iran has 7,000 centrifuges operating at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. A facility with 3,000 centrifuges could produce enough enriched uranium to produce one atomic bomb in about a year, according to experts.

Also yesterday Ahmadinejad said he would welcome a genuine overture from President Barack Obama.

In Washington, the United States reacted cautiously to Ahmadinejad's openness to talks with the West based on respect and justice, saying Washington had made clear its desire to engage Iran and was waiting for Tehran to respond.

"We want to engage Iran and we...have said so very clearly and publicly, and so we wait for Iran to reciprocate," US State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters. "I don't have anything more to add."