VIENNA — Russia joined the United States and France in urging Iran to stop enriching uranium to higher levels in a statement shared Wednesday with The Associated Press, suggesting that the project reinforced suspicions that Tehran is seeking to make nuclear weapons.
Shrugging off international concerns, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that the country was moving ahead to expand its enrichment capacities by installing more advanced machinery at its main enrichment facility.
Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran that the centrifuges are not yet operational but are five times more efficient than the model now in use at its Natanz enrichment plant.
Because enrichment can produce both nuclear weapons as well as reactor fuel, Iran is under three sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions for refusing to stop its program. Its determination to expand such activities had been criticized worldwide even before an announcement earlier this month that Tehran would enrich to a higher level.
In a confidential letter to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the three world powers questioned Tehran's assertion that it had started the higher enrichment project to provide fuel to a research reactor providing medical isotopes for cancer patients.
The one-page letter was significant in reflecting unified Russian and Western opposition to Iran's move. Russia in the past has often put the brakes on Western attempts to penalize Tehran for defying Security Council demands.
"If Iran goes ahead with this escalation, it would raise fresh concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions, in light of the fact that Iran cannot produce the needed nuclear fuel in time" to refuel the research reactor, the letter said.
Iran's decision to enrich to the 20 percent level is "wholly unjustified, contrary to UN Security Council resolutions and represents a further step toward a capability to produce highly enriched uranium," said the letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.
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