Iran
is
now able to enrich uranium to more than 80 percent purity, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, coming close to levels experts say would be
needed for a nuclear bomb.
He told a huge flag-waving crowd on the anniversary of
the 1979 Islamic Revolution that
Iran
does
not want to produce a nuclear bomb but if it ever did, it would do so publicly,
a response to Western concerns that
Iran
is
seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability in secret.
"When we say that we don't build nuclear bombs,
it means that we won't do that because we don't believe in having it," he
said. "The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to
build nuclear bombs we would announce it publicly without being afraid of
you."
"Right now in Natanz (enrichment complex) we have
the capability to enrich to more than 20 percent and (also) to more than 80
percent, but because we don't need to, we won't do so.
Ahmadinejad also said
Iran
had
produced its first batch of 20 percent-enriched atomic fuel, two days after it
announced the start of the project.
Iran denies Western accusations that its nuclear
energy program has military goals, saying it only seeks to generate electricity
so that it can export more of its oil and gas.
MODEST HIGHER-SCALE ENRICHMENT
Iran
opted
to escalate enrichment after the collapse of efforts to iron out a fuel swap
deal with the West, under which it would have sent much of its low-enriched
uranium abroad in return for 20-percent-pure fuel rods for a medical reactor.
Tehran
says
its shift into 20 percent enrichment is solely to replenish the medical
isotope-producing reactor's fuel stock, which is due to run out of such fuel
later this year.
But
Iran
lacks
the technical means to convert 20 percent fuel into the special fuel assemblies
for the reactor, raising skepticism about its motivations for higher-scale
enrichment.
The main technical challenge in enriching uranium is
to reach a level of 3.5 percent -- which
Iran
has
already done. After that scaling up to 20, or 80 percent, is relatively easy.
However,
Iran
would
then still have to master technology to convert high-enriched uranium into a
deliverable nuclear weapon. U.S. National Intelligence chief Dennis Blair said
last year
Iran
would
not be capable of weaponizing enrichment before 2013.
Ahmadinejad said
Iran
would
in the near future treble output of 20 percent fuel. "Why do they (West)
think by producing 20 percent fuel a major event has happened? Right now at
Natanz we have the capability to enrich uranium to much higher levels."
Iranian officials say
Tehran
remains prepared to exchange fuel, but under conditions which the West has
rejected.
For world powers and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the
swap's attraction lies in preventing Iran from retaining enough of the material
for a nuclear weapon, if it were refined to 90 percent.
Iran
has
insisted on simultaneous exchanges of small amounts of low-enriched uranium on
its own soil, which would allow it to keep enough for use in a weapon, if it so
decided.
"Come and give us fuel without preconditions. We
are ready to buy fuel from an country that provides us with it, we are even
ready to buy fuel from
America
,"
Ahmadinejad said.