Iran says it has enriched 17 kg uranium to 20 percent purity

Iran started refining uranium to 20 percent purity in February, up from around 5 percent, saying it aimed to produce fuel for a medical research reactor.

The move alarmed the West, as it was seen as a significant step towards making 90 percent enriched weapons-grade uranium. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, primarily electricity generation.
"We have already produced 17 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, and we can produce 5 kg every month but we are not in a hurry," said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, reports the ISNA news agency.
"We do not want to produce anything that we do not need and we don't want to convert all our uranium reserves to 20 percent enriched uranium, so we produce 20 percent enriched uranium according to our needs."
Salehi told Reuters in February that the Tehran medical reactor required around 1.5 kg of fuel per month. By early April, Iran had produced 5.7 kg, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told Reuters that around 200 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, if further enriched, would be required to make a nuclear bomb. Iran had hoped to avoid the latest sanctions by offering to send some of its low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad in return for higher grade fuel -- enriched elsewhere -- for the Tehran reactor, which makes isotopes for treating cancer.
That offer, brokered in May by Turkey and Brazil, revived a deal struck with major powers in October. But Western diplomats said the fuel swap was no longer meaningful, as Iran had increased its LEU stockpile considerably in the meantime.
Saheli said the test phase of third generation centrifuges -- unveiled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a ceremony in April -- was nearly complete and that work on a fourth generation was under way.