“The enrichment in Fordo has started,” an Iranian official who asked not to be identified told Reuters.
Two diplomats at the Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected the site, confirmed it, the report said.
Director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereydoun Abbasi said on January 7 that the Fordo enrichment facility will start operating in the near future.
“The Fordo facility will be launched soon and will be able to produce 20 percent, 3.5 percent, and 4 percent enriched uranium,” Abbasi said.
In August 2011, the AEOI announced that it plans to transfer the production of uranium enriched to a purity level of 20 percent from the Natanz nuclear site to the Fordo enrichment facility under the supervision of the IAEA and to triple the production of 20 percent enriched uranium.
Iran needs 20 percent enriched uranium to produce nuclear fuel plates for the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment.
It was also announced that the first batch of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel will be loaded into the core of the Tehran research reactor within a month.
On January 1 scientists and researchers at the AEOI successfully tested the first domestically produced nuclear fuel rod. Iran should convert fuel rods into fuel plates to power the Tehran research reactor.
Iranian officials had previously said that the technology for producing nuclear fuel plates does not differ greatly from the technology for producing nuclear fuel rods.
EP/PA
END
MNA