Iran reaches key nuclear target: Ahmadinejad

FE Team | Published: November 08, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

TEHRAN, Nov 7 (AFP): Iran has built a landmark 3,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday, despite international pressure to halt its atomic work.
"We have now reached 3,000 machines," a defiant Ahmadinejad told a rally in the northeastern city of Birjand.
Scientists say that in ideal conditions 3,000 centrifuges can make enough highly enriched uranium in a year's time for an atom bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in August that Iran had 12 cascades of 164 centrifuges (1,968) running simultaneously to enrich uranium and that 656 others were either under construction or being tested.
The UN Security Council has passed two rounds of sanctions to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, which can be used to supply fuel for power generation or for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Iran has so far defied the resolutions, insisting it has a right to enrichment as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Some people say implement the resolutions but we say the resolutions are based on a wrong report," Ahmadinejad told the rally.
"Iran will not give any credit to these resolutions."
"They should know that the Iranian nation could not care less about the sanctions," the hardline president said, vowing "these people will not retreat an iota from any of their rights, especially the nuclear rights."
Iran denies Western charges that it is trying to build atomic weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear programme, and says it only wants to enrich uranium for civilian energy purposes.
The sanctions target Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, but the United States which is spearheading international efforts to thwart Iran's atomic work has imposed a set of unilateral sanctions against Iran over its nuclear defiance and alleged support of terrorism.
Washington has blacklisted Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards corps and its elite Qods force, accused of arming and training insurgents in Iraq. It has also blacklisted major Iranian banks and urged European and Asian banks to halt their transactions with Tehran.