Iran Expands Enrichment Program
While the West fiddles along, Iran is busy charging ahead with its nuclear weapons program. Today, they announced a big expansion in the program and also revealed that Russia is paying no attention whatsoever to the UN-imposed sanctions that are supposed to be in place against Iran.
"Now we are entering the mass production of centrifuges and starting to launch industrial scale enrichment, another step toward the flourishing of Islamic Iran," Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said at a ceremony at Natanz.
Aghazadeh, who heads Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, did not elaborate. Industrial-scale enrichment is the term Iran uses to mean a capability to produce greater levels of nuclear fuel — which would suggest Iran has increased the number of centrifuges working at Natanz.
Iran on Monday celebrated the one-year anniversary of the country's first success in enriching uranium, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepared to announce new progress in the key process that the United Nations has demanded Iran halt.
Ahmadinejad was attending ceremonies at the Natanz enrichment plant, where the Iranian press has speculated he will announce the installation of 3,000 centrifuges, a dramatic expansion of the program. State-run TV said only that he would announce "good nuclear news" in a speech at the ceremony.
The U.N. has imposed limited sanctions on Iran until it suspends enrichment a key process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the basis of a warhead. The United States and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, a claim the country denies.
Iranian state television reported Monday that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general who is banned from traveling abroad under the sanctions has visited Russia without any difficulty.
The West is running out of time to deal with Iran. The pirates in charge there have no fear at all of the UN or any other "transnational" organization.
Other Links to this Post
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There Ya Go « Michael P.F. van der Galiën — April 9, 2007 @ 9:46 am
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There Ya Go | The Moderate Voice — April 9, 2007 @ 9:48 am
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The Sandbox — April 9, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
By Bill Franklin, April 10, 2007 @ 5:52 am
> The pirates in charge there have no fear at all
> of the UN or any other ‘transnational’ organization.â€
Wonder whose behavior they’re emulating? – Didn’t we thumb our nose at the UN and ignore their vote that we not invade Iraq?
Of course, we don’t help conditions by calling Iran part of an “axis of evil” and then invade a neighboring country without international consensus. The way the Iranians see it, like North Korea, the only way you’ll get the US to respect you and come to the bargaining table is if you have a nuke. It’s sad that we’ve created that perception.
I wonder how historians will treat the foreign diplomacy methods the US has used over the last seven years.