Iran to enrich uranium despite possible sanctions

International pressure is mounting for fresh sanctions on Iran, after Tehran announced it would begin enriching nuclear fuel to a higher level.

The head of the country's Atomic Energy Agency said 10 new plants would be built over the next year where the enrichment would be carried out.

This latest move contradicts an international plan to upgrade Iran's nuclear material in Russia and France.

The deal was aimed at easing the West's suspicions that Tehran is seeking to produce weapons-grade fuel.

Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen thinks possible threats coming from Iran are exaggerated in the West:

“You need 90 per cent enriched uranium to create nuclear weapons. So all these complaints from the Western countries about Iran striving for nuclear weapon is just hyping the situation.”

Russia might play crucial role in returning Iran to the negotiating table, said Bruno Pellaud, who was deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1993 to 1999.

”There is something that Russia could do immediately,” he told RT. “[It] is to tell the Iranians ‘Come back to the negotiating table as soon as possible, within a few weeks. If you don’t, then we are withdrawing all Russian engineers and physicists working for the commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant.’”

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