Ahmadinejad: Mr. Salehi you start enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity level.

 

Tehran, February 07, 2010 (Hamsayeh.Net) - Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the country’s atomic chief to start the process of higher uranium enrichment to 20 percent level required for Tehran’s medical reactor in earnest.

 

The announcement made at a scientific exhibition related to laser technology this morning. ‘Mr. Salehi you start enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity level while we keep the doors open for further negotiations on this issue,’ announced the Iranian President at the gathering where Mr. Aki Akbar Salehi was also sitting in the audience.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tasked the country's atomic chief with enriching uranium to 20 percent, in order to meet the demands of the country's cancer patients. The surprised announcement preceded the latest negotiations on a nuclear swap proposal in which the West decided that they could not guarantee the return of higher enriched uranium to Iran after it was to be shipped outside the country. Iran’s parliament speaker criticized the Western stand saying they (Western powers) intend to take away the country’s low enriched uranium stocks and never return it.

 

The 20 percent enriched uranium is required to feed the country’s sole medical reactor which supplies radioisotopes for all the hospitals including the MRI centres across the country. Contrary to West’s timetable of one year for the 20 percent enrichment process, Iranian technicians should have the capabilities to perform this process within only 2 to 3 months period.