Iran will not 'further enrich uranium' Tuesday May 2 22:38 AEST Iran has enriched uranium to 4.8 per cent but will not enrich above 5 per cent, the head of its atomic energy body said on Tuesday, keeping the country's enrichment work within a range used for nuclear power stations.
Experts said uranium enriched to a range of 3 to 5 per cent is a low level used in atomic power reactors. Uranium would have to be enriched far higher, to 80 per cent or more, to make nuclear weapons, which is what the West fears Iran wants.
Iran said at the end of April it had enriched uranium to more than 4 per cent. Prior to that, it had told the UN nuclear watchdog that it had enriched to 3.6 per cent, a level confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The highest level of enrichment carried out in Iran was 4.8 per cent," head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, told the students' ISNA news agency. "Enrichment above 5 per cent is not on Iran's agenda."
Iran, which hid enrichment research from the IAEA for 18 years, said last month that it purified uranium in a test cascade of 164 centrifuges at its Natanz pilot plant.
Iran says it will pursue industrial-scale enrichment based on 3,000 centrifuges it plans to start installing by the end of this year. Experts say that many could yield enough fuel for one bomb within a year, but Iran insists its plans are civilian.
"The construction work and preparing the centrifuges are underway for the cascade of 3,000 centrifuges," Aghazadeh said.
