Iran Nuclear Enrichment will continue as planned

Iran's Fars news agency said the day marks Iran's long path to self-dependence to complete the nuclear fuel cycle and thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at rates up to 30 per cent.

The nuclear fuel cycle provides Iran with its civilian needs from reactors which produce electricity or for medical research.

Iran is seeking to reassure the West that it does not plan to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
On Wednesday, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stressed Iran's determination to continue talks with the world powers, but meantime, underlined that the country won't halt its nuclear research and development programs.

"(Iran's) Agreement with the negotiations was aimed at breaking the hostile atmosphere created by the arrogance front against Iran and these negotiations should continue, but everyone should know that the Islamic Republic of Iran's activities in the field of nuclear research and development will not stop at all and none of the nuclear achievements can be closed while relations between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran should stay conventional and should not grow extraordinary," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing directors and experts of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in a meeting held in Tehran on Wednesday to mark the National Day of the Nuclear Technology.

"Negotiations don’t mean that the Islamic Republic of Iran will withdraw from its scientific nuclear move and the Iranian negotiators should insist on continued nuclear research and development (in their talks with the world powers)," he added.

"None of Iran's nuclear achievements can be shut down and no one has the right to make a deal over them and no one will do so," the Leader said, calling on the AEOI experts and officials to continue their progress seriously and powerfully.

Elsewhere, he rejected the western claims that their differences with Iran and sanctions against the country are just rooted in Tehran's nuclear activities, and said if no nuclear issue existed, they would raise other excuses as now, during the course of the negotiations, the Americans raise human rights issues as an excuse and if the human rights issue is settled, they will seek other excuses."

He underscored the necessity for continued talks with the world powers, but just over the nuclear issue, and said Iran knows that the West is just seeking excuses for its animosity towards the Islamic Republic, but it continues the talks in a bid to show the world its goodwill and also disclosed the reality of the West's unreal allegations against Iran's nuclear activities.
Yet, the Leader stressed that "our negotiators shouldn’t accept any bullying words from the other side".

The Leader's remarks came as representatives of Iran and the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) started another round of talks on a comprehensive nuclear agreement in Vienna on Tuesday morning. The fresh round of talks comes after a breakthrough temporary deal between Tehran and the sextet in Geneva in November followed by two rounds of talks between experts of Iran and the six power and two sets of meetings between senior negotiators of the seven nations.
Iran nuclear program timeline

1957 - The United States and Iran sign a civil nuclear co-operation agreement as part of the US Atoms for Peace program. August 9, 1963 - Iran signs the Partial nuclear test ban treaty (PTBT) and ratifies it on December 23, 1963.

1967- The Tehran Nuclear Research Centre is built and run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).

September 1967- The United States supplies 5.545 kg of enriched uranium, of which 5.165 kg contain fissile isotopes for fuel in a research reactor. The United States also supplies 112 g of plutonium, of which 104 g are fissile isotopes, for use as start-up sources for research reactor.
July 1968 - Iran signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratifies it. It goes into effect on March 5, 1970.

1970s - Under the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, plans are made to construct up to 20 nuclear power stations across the country with U.S. support and backing. Numerous contracts are signed with various Western firms, and the German firm Kraftwerk Union (a subsidiary of Siemens AG) begins construction on the Bushehr power plant in 1974.

1974 - The Atomic Energy Act of Iran was promulgated. The Act covers the activities for which the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was established at that period. These activities included using atomic energy and radiation in industry, agriculture and service industries, setting up atomic power stations and desalination factories, producing source materials needed in atomic industries. This creates the scientific and technical infrastructure required for carrying out the said projects, as well as co-ordinating and supervising all matters pertaining to atomic energy in the country.

1974 - The Shah lent $1 billion to the French Atomic Energy Commission to help build the Eurodif uranium processing company in Europe. In exchange, Iran received rights to 10% of the enriched uranium product, a right Iran never exercised. After a bitter legal dispute, the loan was repaid in 1991. Following the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 in 2006, UN financial sanctions required France to freeze dividend payments to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

1975 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology signs a contract with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to provide training for Iranian nuclear engineers.

1979: Iran's Islamic revolution puts a freeze on the existing nuclear program and the Bushehr contract with Siemens AG is terminated as the German firm leaves.

1982 - Iranian officials announced that they planned to build a reactor powered by their own uranium at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre.

1983 - International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors inspect Iranian nuclear facilities, and report on a proposed co-operation agreement to help Iran manufacture enriched uranium fuel as part of Iran's "ambitious program in the field of nuclear power reactor technology and fuel cycle technology." The assistance program is later terminated under US pressure.

1985- Iranian radio programs openly discuss the significance of the discovery of uranium deposits in Iran with the director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation. Also in this year Iran, Syria and Libya say that they should all develop nuclear weapons to counter the Israeli nuclear threat.

1989 - The Radiation Protection Act of Iran was ratified in public session of April 9, 1989 by the Parliament and was approved by the Council of Law-Guardians on April 19, 1989.

1990 - Iran begins negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding the re-construction of the Bushehr power plant.

1992 - Iran signs an agreement with China for the building of two 950-megawatt reactors in Darkhovin (Western Iran). To date, construction has not yet begun.

1993 - China provides Iran with an HT-6B Tokamak fusion reactor that is installed at the Plasma Physics Research Centre of Azad University.

January 1995 - Iran signs an $800 million contract with the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom) to complete a Light water reactor in Bushehr under IAEA safeguards.

1996 - China and Iran inform the IAEA of plans to construct a nuclear enrichment facility in Iran, but China withdraws from the contract under U.S. pressure. Iran advises the IAEA that it plans to pursue the construction anyway.

December 18, 2003 - As agreed in the Paris Agreement, Iran voluntarily signs and implements the Additional Protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Though the Protocol was not binding on Iran until ratified, Iran voluntarily agrees to permit expanded and more intensive IAEA inspections pursuant to the Protocol, which fail to turn up a nuclear weapons program in Iran. Iran ends the voluntarily implementation of Additional Protocol after two years of inspections, as a protest to continued EU-3 demands that Iran abandon all enrichment.

On June 29, 2004 - IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei announced that the Bushehr reactor was "not of international concern" since it was a bilateral Russian-Iranian project intended to produce nuclear energy.

July 31, 2004 - Iran states that it has resumed building nuclear centrifuges to enrich uranium, reversing a voluntary October 2003 pledge to Britain, France, and Germany to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities. The United States contends that the purpose is to produce weapons-grade uranium.

April 9, 2007- President Ahmadinejad has announced Iran can now produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale. Some officials said 3,000 uranium gas enrichment centrifuges were running at the Natanz plant in central Iran.