TEHRAN, April 9 (Itar-Tass) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to declare on Monday new achievements in the implementation of the country’ s nuclear programme.
He will visit a uranium enrichment center in Natanz, where he will make a speech on the occasion of the National Day of Nuclear Technology.
Iran is celebrating this date for the first time.
The government decreed making April 9 a day of honoring Iranian nuclear scientists last autumn.
The Iranian leadership declared a year ago that Iranian nuclear specialists succeeded in enriching uranium-235 to 3.5 percent and thus in obtaining a technology for nuclear fuel production.
The talk was then about a research grade of enrichment, with one cascade of 164 centrifuges functioning in Natanz. In last year’s October, Tehran officially declared the launch of the second cascade.
The Iranian authorities described this achievement as a turning point in the development of a national nuclear programme. Continuing the construction of centrifuges, Iran is sooner or later to come to large-scale uranium enrichment. Tehran plans bringing a number of the centrifuges to 60,000. Local observers presume that Ahmadinejad will declare on Monday the installation and start-up of new equipment for uranium enrichment in Natanz.
The question is whether it is about the third cascade of 164 centrifuges or 3,000 centrifuges that would bring Iran to a semi-industrial scale of uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, Russian and international experts had repeatedly pointed out that the intention of Iranian authorities to come to large-scale enrichment would be of practical significance only of the country had at least ten nuclear power pants.
The Iranian parliament earlier passed a resolution that called for the construction of 20 plants within 20 years with a power output of 20,000 megawatts.
However, the construction of only the first nuclear power plant with the help of Russian specialists in Bushehr is nearing completion.
Despite Tehran’s recent statement about the intention to hold a tender for the construction of a 2,000-megawatt plant, observers note an inconsistent pace of building centrifuges and nuclear power plants, and it remains unclear why Iran is in haste to produce nuclear fuel that can be claimed by the energy sector only in a long term.
This explains misgivings of the world community about a possibility of Iran’s nuclear programme veering from civil intents.
A line between a peaceful and military nuclear programme is overstepped by enriching uranium to 90 percent as against a 3-4 percent grade necessary for nuclear fuel.
The launch of a cascade of 3,000 centrifuges would allow Iranian specialists to obtain an initial 25 kilograms of high-enriched uranium within 9-11 months.
This amount of the radioactive substance would be enough for making two nuclear bombs, Britain’s influential International Institute of Strategic Studies warns in its February report.
Official Tehran is continuing to insist that its uranium enrichment activity is pursued only for peaceful purposes and seeks to ensure Iran’s independence from foreign suppliers of nuclear fuel.
Thus, April 9 has all chances to become a milestone in development of the Iranian nuclear programme.
However, any weighty statement by Ahmadinejad can provoke a new spiral of tension around Iran that so far has not given the International Agency of Atomic Energy any guarantees of meticulous adherence to the non-proliferation regime.
