Iranian nuclear chief: Tehran will have a substantial growth in centrifuge machines, continue enriching uranium "with intensity."(JPost).Iran will continue enriching uranium "with intensity", with the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating to increase substantially in the current year, the country's nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, signaled continued defiance by Iran in the face of international demands that Tehran halt enrichment to the higher 20 percent fissile purity level, close down its Fordow enrichment plant, and ship out its stockpile of the material.
"Despite the sanctions, most likely this year we will have a substantial growth in centrifuge machines and we will continue (uranium) enrichment with intensity," Abbasi-Davani was quoted as saying on Wednesday by the website of Iranian state television (IRIB).
The Iranian calendar year runs to mid-March.
A UN report earlier this month said that the Islamic state has put in place the nearly 2,800 centrifuges that Fordow was designed for, and is poised to double the number of them operating to roughly 1,400 from 700 now.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Yukiya Amano said earlier this month that Iran is enriching uranium at a constant pace and international sanctions aimed at making Tehran suspend the activity are having no visible impact.
Abbasi-Davani also said on Wednesday that the Arak research reactor, which Western experts say could potentially offer Iran a second route to material for a nuclear bomb, faced "no problems" and was progressing as normal, IRIB reported.
A UN report this month showed that Iran has postponed until 2014 the planned start-up of the Arak research reactor, which analysts say could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed. Read the full story here.
Related: Iran could work towards plutonium bomb
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