Region | Iran

Iran nuke plant at 'starting stage'

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Iran was still at the starting stage of creating a uranium enrichment plant and that concerns stem more from its motivations than the scale of production.

  • Agencies
  • Published: 00:00 April 12, 2007
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: AP
  • Technicians work at the reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, south of Tehran.

Riyadh: The head of the UN's atomic watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Thursday that Iran was still at the starting stage of creating a uranium enrichment plant and that concerns stem more from its motivations than the scale of production.

"There are various definitions of industrial scale production. Iran is still at the starting stage of creating a uranium enrichment plant," Mohamed Elbaradei, head of the IAEA, told reporters in Riyadh.

"The concern does not only stem from Iran conducting industrial scale production but it is rather Iran's motivations behind (enriching uranium) before it has nuclear reactors for electric power generation that need enriched uranium."

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