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News ID: 63025
Publish Date : 11 February 2019 - 21:49

Official: Iran Ready to Boost Uranium Enrichment


TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran is ready to boost uranium enrichment, the spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on Sunday during a visit to a park in Qazvin.
 Behrouz Kamalvandi said that this would include boosting uranium enrichment to 190,000 Separative Work Units (SWU).
In July 2018, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei warned that Iran would increase its uranium enrichment.
 "Some European governments expect the Iranian nation to both put up with sanctions and give up its nuclear activities,” he said.
 Iran constructed a new factory to create centrifuge rotors last year. French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian warned Iran last year about the plan to increase uranium enrichment.
In July 2018, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the AEOI, said that Iran had constructed an advanced factory during the course of the Iran deal negotiations and that instead of taking another eight years, the factory would be ready in 10 months.
Iran is now expected to unveil new information in March or April after having made achievements in the mass production of oxygen-18.
This is a "major leap,” according to Kamalvandi. He argued that the isotopes developed would have medical applications, avoiding the nuclear arms issue. "Only five countries can produce oxygen 18,” he said.
Salehi said that researchers at its Khandab site, the Arak heavy water plant, were able to produce oxygen-18 with 97% purity at 60 kg per year.
After the Iran deal, Tehran sought to renovate the site. In April of 2017, Iran signed an agreement with China to modernize the heavy water reactor.
 
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