AEOI Chief Salehi : Iran Entitled to Enrich Uranium to 90% Grade.

AEOI Chief Salehi : Iran Entitled to Enrich Uranium to 90% Grade.(Fars).

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi underlined that the country is entitled to enrich uranium to the level of 90%, and said Tehran plans to build four new nuclear plants with Russians' help.

"Firstly, we believe that we are entitled to any right that any NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and (International Atomic Energy) Agency member has, which means that enrichment (of uranium) from 1% to 90% is our right," Salehi said in a televised interview on Sunday.

He said that Iran has accepted to limit its enrichment program to the level of 5% only in a voluntary move based on the Geneva deal inked between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) sealed in November.

Elsewhere, Salehi announced Iran's plans to build four other nuclear power plants in the coming years, and said the construction work for the establishment of Iran's second power plant would start this (Iranian) year and the same trend would continue for the construction of three more plans every other year.

He said that Iran seeks to build its next nuclear power plants through joint cooperation between the country's experts and their Russian counterparts.

Iran is under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment, saying the demand is politically tainted and illogical.

Iran has so far ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives, saying that renouncing its rights under the NPT would encourage the world powers to put further pressure on the country and would not lead to a change in the West's hardline stance on Tehran.

Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the Southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the Southern port city of Bushehr.