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Iran nuclear plant still in early stages: UN atomic chief
AFP
RIYADH
Petroleumworld.com 04 13 07
Iran is still in the early stages of creating a plant to enrich uranium, the chief of the UN atomic watchdog said on Thursday, adding that fears over its nuclear programme arose over what the uranium would be used for.
"Iran is still at an early stage of building a plant to enrich unranium... There is no fear caused by Iran's uranium enrichment (in itself), but fears arise from the purpose of this enrichment," the International Atomic Energy Agency's Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters.
"Iran is pressing ahead with building the Natanz reactor to have 54,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. Now it is still at the hundreds stage," he said in what appeared to be a downplaying of Iran's progress.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced this week that the Islamic republic's controversial uranium enrichment work had reached an "industrial scale."
But Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant, as well as other nations have cast doubts on the accuracy of his statement.
Iran did not give figures to back Monday's announcement that the nuclear drive had entered an industrial phase, and it is not clear exactly how many uranium-enriching centrifuges it had installed.Uranium enrichment is the key sticking point in the standoff between Iran and the West, because as well as producing nuclear fuel the process in highly extended form can also make the fissile core for an atomic bomb.
Iran says its nuclear drive is solely aimed at generating energy and that it does not aspire to nuclear weapons.
AFP 12 1306 GMT 04 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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