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Iran's President Says Uranium Enrichment Has Expanded

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Los Angeles Times

Published: July 27, 2008

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday his country dramatically expanded the number of machines at its disposal producing enriched uranium, defying demands for the country to halt the production of nuclear material.

But the hard-line leader, quoted by official and semi-official media, also appeared to suggest that Iran might be willing to stop adding more centrifuges, a condition for preliminary talks to end the diplomatic standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad told scholars in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad that Iran possessed more than 5,000 centrifuges, which can produce nuclear material suitable for a power plant or, if highly enriched, an atomic bomb. A May report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had about 3,500 centrifuges running.

Confusion clouded media reports about the number Ahmadinejad cited. One news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Iran had 6,000 centrifuges working. Another said he referred to "hundreds and thousands" of centrifuges.

In theory, 6,000 centrifuges running continuously can produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb in six months. But Iran asserts that it is not trying to build a nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic's enrichment program also has been bedeviled by technical problems.

The United States, Israel, Europe and most Western arms-control experts suspect Iran is trying to at least attain the capability to begin producing bombs quickly if it so decides.

"We knew they were heading toward 6,000 assembled," said Jeffrey G. Lewis, an arms control expert at the New America Foundation, a think tank. "But there's some dispute as to whether they're running them or not."

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana recently offered the Iranians a U.S.-endorsed package of incentives meant to entice them to stop producing enriched uranium. He also proposed a six-week period of pre-negotiations, called "freeze for freeze," during which Iran would add no centrifuges and the West would refrain from pushing for a fourth round of economic sanctions against Iran.

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