Iran crosses red line, can enrich uranium up to 20pc grade

[David Guyatt]

The West's brinkmanship has resulted in the desired effect its seems. Reject every concession Iran offers, rub their face in it, and sit back and wait...and then announce that in the nme of peace we'll have a war. Nice:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_...502705.stm

Iran sets new nuclear challenge



Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has asked the country's nuclear chief to begin enriching uranium to 20%.

He made the announcement a day after Western scepticism at Iran's earlier claim that a deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel was close.

The US and European Union said they were unconvinced and Iran must make a meaningful offer or face new sanctions.

Western countries fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. But Tehran insists its programme is peaceful.

Civilian nuclear power requires uranium enriched to about 3%, but weapons grade uranium needs to be enriched to 90%.

Challenge

Mr Ahmadinejad made the announcement on Iranian state television.

"I had said let us give them [Western powers] two to three months, and if they don't agree, we would start ourselves," he said in a speech broadcast live.

"Now Dr [Ali Akbar] Salehi, start to make the 20% with the centrifuges," the president said, addressing Iran's nuclear chief who was sitting in the audience at a laser technology plant in Tehran.

But he added: "The doors for interaction are still open."

The BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, reporting from London, says Mr Ahmadinejad's announcement crosses a significant red line.

Iranians want to supply a research reactor with highly enriched uranium following the breakdown of the international deal to provide fuel for it.

NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
Mined uranium ore is purified and reconstituted into solid form known as yellowcake
Yellowcake is chemically processed and converted into Uranium Hexafluoride gas
Gas is fed through centrifuges, where its isotopes separate and process is repeated until uranium is enriched
Low-level enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel
Highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons
But some Western analysts say Iran does not possess the technical know-how to make fuel rods for the reactor, our correspondent says, and Western countries fear this could be a stepping stone towards the manufacture of weapons-grade material.

At the very least, this is a provocative act which will make negotiations more difficult, our correspondent says.

On Friday, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a security conference in Munich, Germany, that an agreement could be reached in a "not too distant future".

But US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said: "I don't have the sense that we're close to an agreement."

If Iran was prepared to take up the proposal put forward by the so-called P5+1 - the US, Russia, China, UK and France plus Germany - on handing over its low-enriched uranium then it should take that message to the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, he said.

He suggested that Western powers needed to think about whether it was now time to take a "different tack" on Iran.

In January, diplomats said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it did not accept the terms of the deal agreed in October by Iran, the IAEA and the P5+1.

In response, the US, Britain and France have been pressing for more sanctions and earlier this week circulated a discussion paper on further possible measures against the country.

But China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told the Munich conference that the P5+1 should remain patient and keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to the issue.

Existing UN sanctions are meant to prevent the flow of any items or technology which might aid Iran in enriching uranium or developing nuclear weapon delivery systems.

The sanctions range from actual sales or supplies to dealings with named individuals.