Iran says there will be no slowdown in its nuclear plan and urges US to 'face reality'

Iran yesterday denied having slowed down its nuclear activities and said it planned to install 50,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium over the next five years after staging a dummy run of its Bushehr reactor, built with Russian help.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, dismissed claims by the UN nuclear agency that Iran had slowed the expansion of its controversial uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

"America should face reality and accept living with a nuclear Iran," Aghazadeh said, adding that a new nuclear achievement would be announced in April. There are currently 6000 centrifuges operating at Natanz, up from 5000 last November.

Aghazadeh was speaking at Bushehr, on Iran's Gulf coast, site of the country's first nuclear power plant. Iran said it had carried out successful tests that had taken it a step closer to its launch.

"Our plan to install and run centrifuges is not based on political conditions," Aghazadeh told reporters. "We have a plan and we will go ahead with it."

Uranium enriched to a low level is used as fuel in a reactor; further enrichment makes it suitable for nuclear weapons.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week that Iran had managed to enrich a metric tonne of low enriched uranium, which is technically enough to build a weapon – though there remained many practical obstacles to the production of a bomb. The IAEA said Iran appeared to have slowed the rate at which its enrichment capacity was expanding. More

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