TEHRAN: Iran has produced a “first stock” of 20 per cent enriched uranium for its nuclear programme and is capable of enriching it to 80 per cent but will not do so, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday. In a speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, the hardline president said Iran would soon triple its daily production of low-enriched uranium (3.5 per cent). “The head of the atomic energy organisation said the first stock of 20 per cent fuel was produced and delivered to scientists,” he said at Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square before hundreds of thousands of Iranians gathered to mark the anniversary. “Why do they (world powers) think that 20 per cent is such a big deal? Right now in Natanz we have the capability to enrich at over 20 per cent and at over 80 percent, but because we don’t need it we won’t do it.”

Ahmadinejad also said that at Natanz, where Iran has been enriching uranium

despite three sets of UN

sanctions, Tehran has the ability to manufacture several dozen kilos of low-enriched uranium.