Iran to Start Nuclear Enrichment Program

Iran moved closer to confrontation with the West over its nuclear program on Sunday.
Iran to Start Nuclear Enrichment Program
REFORM: Defeated reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi (C) raises his arms as he appears during a demonstration in the streets on June 15, 2009, in Tehran, Iran. (Getty Images)
2/7/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/IRANC.jpg" alt="NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours an exhibition on laser technology in Tehran on Feb. 7. Ahmadinejad ordered national scientists to begin enrichment of the country's uranium stockpile. The announcement is counter to earlier indications that Iran was willing to negotiate a compromise over a nuclear program. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)" title="NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours an exhibition on laser technology in Tehran on Feb. 7. Ahmadinejad ordered national scientists to begin enrichment of the country's uranium stockpile. The announcement is counter to earlier indications that Iran was willing to negotiate a compromise over a nuclear program. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1822780"/></a>
NUCLEAR ENRICHMENT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours an exhibition on laser technology in Tehran on Feb. 7. Ahmadinejad ordered national scientists to begin enrichment of the country's uranium stockpile. The announcement is counter to earlier indications that Iran was willing to negotiate a compromise over a nuclear program. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
Iran moved closer to confrontation with the West over its nuclear program on Sunday, after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered national scientists to begin enrichment of the country’s uranium stockpile.

The announcement is counter to earlier indications that Iran was willing to negotiate a compromise over a nuclear program that is feared could be harnessed to develop weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that there was still time for sanctions against Iran to work.

“Pressures that are focused on the government of Iran, as opposed to the people of Iran, potentially have greater opportunity to achieve the objective,” Gates said at a news conference during a visit to Italy.

The West hopes that Iran will send its uranium overseas to be enriched in a way that could be used in a civil nuclear reactor, but not in a nuclear bomb.

Last Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said that he would have “no problem” giving the West its low-enriched uranium and taking it back several months later when it had been enriched by 20 percent.

However, on Sunday, the Iranian president said that he had given the West enough time to comply with the offer and that he was asking Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, to begin domestic enrichment.

“I now ask Dr. Salehi to start work on the production of 20 percent fuel using centrifuges,” he said in a televised speech.

Civilian nuclear power requires uranium enriched to about 3 percent. Weapons grade uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent.

However it is feared that, should Iran develop the capacity to enrich its uranium to 20 percent, there would be little oversight to ensure that it was not enriched further.

Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German defense minister, told a reporter in Munich, “Today’s statement shows that farce is being played out just like we have seen in the past, that the outstretched hand of the international community has not only not been taken but pushed back.”