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'Iran will enrich uranium to 20%
02.07.2010.16:33
 Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered his country's atomic agency to begin the production of higher enriched uranium.
He said in comments broadcast Sunday on state television: "God willing, 20 percent enrichment will start" to meet Iran's needs. He did not give a date for the start of the enrichment process.
Speaking at a meeting attended by the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, Ahmadinejad said: "Mr. Salehi, begin production of 20 percent" enriched uranium.
Producing enriched uranium is the international community's core concern over Iran's nuclear program since it can be used to make nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.
The news comes just days after Ahmadinejad's reported agreement to ship out Iran's uranium according to a UN-brokered deal failed to impress Western leaders.
US and European officials at a gathering of the world’s top defense officials in Munich on Friday rejected statements from Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki that Teheran was “approaching a final agreement.”
Mottaki attempted to revive a UN proposal in which Iran would swap enriched uranium for fuel rods to be used in its nuclear power plants, but with new Iranian conditions added to the plan.
German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said Iran’s tactics were a “transparent play for time.”
Guttenberg added that “today’s declaration is a farce just like what we have seen in the past, when the extended hand of the international community was rejected.”
And German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he saw Teheran’s latest offer to settle the ongoing nuclear dispute as another sign of bad-faith bargaining.
Westerwelle said on Saturday at the security conference in the Bavarian capital that “our hand is still reaching out toward them. But so far it’s reaching out into nothingness. And I’ve seen nothing since yesterday that makes me want to change that view.”
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates sharply criticized the Iranians during a visit to Ankara, suggesting that Washington was losing its patience.
“The reality is they’ve done nothing to assure the international community” or “to stop their progress toward [building] a nuclear weapon,” Gates said, “and therefore various nations need to think about whether it is time for a different tack.”
“Iran is the only country in the region that has publicly declared its intent to destroy another country in the region,” Gates told reporters in Turkey, in reference to Iran’s threats to Israel. If Iran proceeds with this program “unrestrained,” there is a “real danger of proliferation” that would destabilize the region.
US National Security Adviser Gen. (ret.) James Jones spoke of Iran’s continued “puzzling defiance” of Western demands that it freeze uranium enrichment.
“We have not seen indications that it is willing to do so at this time,” he said.
US Sen. Joe Lieberman, the influential Connecticut independent, said the time for talk was over and that the international community should pursue “tough economic sanctions to make diplomacy work.” He called Mottaki’s comments “laughable” and “intellectually dishonest.”
“He came here to talk, talk, talk and not to walk the walk,” Lieberman said.
On the sidelines of the Munich conference, Mottaki met with International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Yukiya Amano behind closed doors on Saturday.
Afterward, Mottaki told reporters the two had discussed the details of the swap proposal, but he did not mention any tangible progress. He reiterated his comments of the previous night, saying he sees “the situation as positive for reaching an understanding.”
Mottaki made an unexpected last-minute appearance at the Munich conference and said on Friday an agreement could be reached in a “not too distant future.”
“If there is really a new approach to working together, then concrete deeds must follow the words coming from Iran,” said Westerwelle.
JPOST
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