US warns Iran's plan to build more uranium enrichment plants
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Iran's plan to build two additional uranium enrichment plants is further evidence showing its rejection of cooperation with the international community on the controversial nuclear program, said U.S. State Department on Monday.
"This is further evidence that Iran refuses to engage cooperatively and constructively" with the International Atomic Energy Agency, said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, referring to Iran's newly-announced plan to build two new uranium enrichment plants in the next Iranian year, which begins March 21.
"We continue to work closely with our partners in the P5+1 ( namely the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) process to identify potential targets for sanctions. And we will, I think, be advancing specific proposals to the United Nations in the coming weeks," said the spokesman.
Iran's Students News Agency quoted Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, saying on Monday that nearly 20 locations "have been chosen and presented" to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and that Iran will use "new centrifuges" at the two plants, which are included the 10 planned in November.
According to President Ahmadinejad, who said in November that at least five of the 10 new plants will begin to be built within two months, Iran's need for energy will grow dramatically over the next 15 years and in order to meet the need, Iran "annually must produce between 250 to 300 tons of nuclear fuel."
The IAEA said that Iran has 8,745 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium, and that Iran had produced its first batch of 20 percent highly enriched uranium.
The international community worries Tehran may obtain the uranium fuel needed for nuclear weapons by the same process to purify uranium, while Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purpose.
The Obama administration, avoiding from sending war threat to Tehran, has been trying the so called dual-track, namely engagement and sanction, to bring the international community together to make Iranian leaders realize the "importance of changing their actions and decisions concerning their nuclear program."
"Leaders in the IAEA and the P5+1, our allies have been clear that without a change in behavior, the Iranian government faces necessary consequences," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday.
