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Iran defends new uranium plant

Global Arab Network - - Adam Turner

Saturday, 26 September 2009 19:19

Iran insists its newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant is legal and open to international inspection.
Iran will put its newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant under the supervision of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the country's vice president has said.

"This site will be under the supervision of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] and will have a maximum of five per cent [uranium] enrichment capacity," Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian vice president, said on state television on Saturday.

The announcement came as Barack Obama, the US president, led a global outcry against Iran for building the facility.

The plant, which is "not an industrial-scale" unit, will be operational in two years' time, Salehi said.

Dismissing allegations that the plant has a military purpose, Salehi said the facility is being constructed as a "precautionary measure in case of an unwanted incident against our nuclear programme".

He said Iran's nuclear installations are facing "threats every day" and so Tehran "had to take measures to disperse" the locations of its installations.

In the first official disclosure of the plant's location, Salehi said earlier on Saturday that Tehran would allow IAEA inspectors to inspect the plant 100km south of the capital, Tehran, on the road to the city of Qom.

The IAEA said a day earlier that Tehran had written to the agency on September 21 disclosing that it is building a new uranium enrichment facility.

"God willing, this new plant will become operational soon and make the enemy blind," Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, the chief of staff for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said on Saturday.

The announcement of the new facility came just days before an October 1 meeting in Geneva between Iran and six world powers to discuss Tehran's disputed atomic programme.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, denied Tehran was building the plant in secret, as claimed by Western leaders, and told reporters in New York on Friday the facility is "completely legal".

"We actually informed the agency [IAEA] 18 months ahead of time.

"Is this the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? I thought we are supposed to be encouraged for taking this action." (Reuters, AFP, BBC)

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