President Ahmadinejad claims success in manufacturing fuel rods and advanced centrifuges day after Bangkok bombings
Iran has stepped up its defiance against the west over Tehran's nuclear programme, claiming to have built faster uranium enrichment centrifuges and have loaded domestically made fuel plates into a reactor.
The move comes amid an escalation of the rhetoric between Iran and Israel over allegations made by officials in the two countries about bomb attacks in Tehran and other capitals including Delhi and Tbilisi as well as Tuesday's blasts in Bangkok.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on Wednesday what he described as a "very big new achievement" in Iran's disputed nuclear programme in a ceremony at Tehran's research reactor, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Nuclear fuel rods that Iran says have been manufactured domestically and enriched to 20% are reported to have been inserted into Tehran's reactor, Fars said.
Other people present at the ceremony included the foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear chief, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, and the son of an Iranian nuclear scientist, Majid Shahriari, who was assassinated in Tehran in November 2010 in what is widely being seen as a campaign against the regime's nuclear activities.
The Tehran water research reactor, which is under the surveillance of the UN nuclear agency inspectors, produces radioisotopes for use in medical treatments and agriculture.
State television also announced development of a new generation of centrifuges for use in uranium enrichment facilities that it claimed were faster and produce less waste. "The fourth generation of domestically made centrifuges have a higher speed and production capacity," it said.
Iran's students' news agency, Isna, reported that Ahmadinejad unveiled the "advanced" centrifuges in a video conference with the Natanz uranium enrichment site which, according to Fars, will now be named after Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, one of the Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated in recent years (the Fordow nuclear site, which is under a mountain near the holy city of Qom, is to now be named after Masoud Ali-Mohammadi).
In a live television broadcast, Ahmadinejad said: "The era of bullying nations has passed. The arrogant powers cannot monopolise nuclear technology. They tried to prevent us by issuing sanctions and resolutions but failed... our nuclear path will continue."
According to Iranian claims, the "fourth generation" centrifuge would be able to enrich uranium three times faster than the previous capability. Iran's English-language television station, Press TV, said Tehran added 3,000 new centrifuges to its Natanz enrichment facility, increasing the total number of Iran's active centrifuges to 9,000. Experts, however, have questioned Iran's ability to make such sophisticated machines in industrial quantity.
Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told a news agency that Moscow was concerned about Iran's nuclear progress but urged the west to resume negotiations with Tehran. Talks came to a standstill last year after several unsuccessful attempts to reach agreement on an agenda.
He called on the west to "search for compromises and the proposal of a solution scheme that could interest the Iranian side." He said western sanctions against the regime had "zero" effect on forcing Iran to comply with its international obligations.
Speaking to the journal Security Index, Ryabkov said: "We have no smoking gun confirming the presence of a military component and a military aspect of the Iranian nuclear programme."
France and Britain added their concerns to Wednesday's reported nuclear progress in Iran. "These statements are an extra concern for the international community," said French deputy foreign ministry spokesman Romain Nadal.
"The Iranian military nuclear programme constitutes one of the most serious threats to peace not only in the world but in the region. We are convinced that Iran continues to develop this programme. [These] announcements reinforce that conviction."
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "[This] does not give any confidence that Iran is ready to engage meaningfully on the international community's well-founded concerns about its nuclear programme. Until it does so, we'll only increase peaceful and legitimate pressure on Iran to return to negotiations." Iranian news agencies reported on Sunday that a senior diplomat from China's foreign ministry, Ma Zhaoxu, was in Tehran to discuss Iran's nuclear programme.
Despite raising the stakes with the west by announcing new advances, Iran's state-run Arabic-language television, al-Alam, said a letter from Tehran had been sent to the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, expressing readiness for fresh nuclear talks with the world's major powers, including the US, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain, the group known as P5+1.
In recent years, Iran's nuclear programme has experienced a series of dramatic setbacks: Stuxnet, a computer worm believed to have been designed by the opponents of the regime, caused damage to its nuclear programme and four of Iran's nuclear scientists have been assassinated in the past two years. Another scientist, who was wounded in an assassination attempt, was later promoted to become the country's nuclear chief.
The Iranian authorities say the nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but many western governments believe it has military applications.
Tensions have escalated since a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in November led to an oil embargo against Iran by the US and its European allies. In response to western sanctions which have recently begun to bite, Iran has resorted to sabre-rattling and threats of closing the strait of Hormuz. In recent weeks, fears of a major confrontation between Iran and Israel have grown.
Meanwhile, Iran warned that it could cut off oil exports to six European countries in retaliation for the latest sanctions imposed on the regime. The announcement caused turmoil in the world's crude market.