West vows tough action as Iran reveals 'nuclear fuel' expansion

Published on Monday 8 February 2010 20:58

THE United States and France said yesterday it was time to impose new sanctions on Iran after Tehran announced it was planning a major expansion of its nuclear programme.

Iran said it would soon start producing higher-grade nuclear fuel and add ten uranium enrichment plants over the next year, raising the stakes in its long-running stand-off with Western powers over its atomic plans.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said he did not believe Iran had the ability to raise the enrichment level of its uranium.

"Therefore, this is real blackmail," he said. "The only thing that we can do, alas, is apply sanctions given that negotiations are not possible."

Speaking at a separate event in Paris, US defence secretary Robert Gates also said more pressure had to be applied.

"We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue. The only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together," he said.

Mr Gates said the international community had "offered Iran multiple opportunities to provide reassurance about its intentions with respect to its nuclear programme".

The West is convinced Iran is trying to gain nuclear weapons capacity. Tehran says its atomic programme is peaceful and aimed at producing energy.

Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh yesterday said he had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the decision to enrich at least some of Iran's uranium stockpile to 20 per cent, considered the threshold value for highly enriched uranium.

Mr Soltanieh, who represents Iran at the Vienna-based IAEA, also said that the UN agency's inspectors now overseeing enrichment to low levels would be able to stay on site to fully monitor the process.

He blamed world powers for Iran's decision, asserting that it was their fault that a plan that foresaw Russian and French involvement in supplying the research reactor had failed.

"Until now, we have not received any response to our positive logical and technical proposal," he said. "We cannot leave hospitals and patients desperately waiting for radio isotopes" being produced at the Tehran reactor and used in cancer treatment.

Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to take Iranian low-enriched uranium, further enriching it and return it in the form of fuel rods for the reactor – and in broader terms for turning down other overtures meant to diminish concerns about its nuclear agenda.

Israel, Iran's most implacable foe, said Iran's enrichment plans are "additional proof of the fact that Iran is ridiculing the entire world".

"The right response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions on Iran," said Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already announced that his country would significantly enrich at least some of the country's stockpile of uranium. Still, yesterday's notification to the IAEA was important as formal confirmation of the plan, particularly because of the rash of conflicting signals sent in recent months by Iranian officials on the issue.