Ready for nuclear talks, Tehran informs EU

TEHRAN: Iran's top nuclear negotiator on Wednesday formally notified the European Union's foreign policy chief that Tehran is willing to return to talks with the world powers on its nuclear program. Many in the West however feel that negotiations are a ploy to buy time. Iran is meanwhile pushing ahead on what it says is a drive toward nuclear-self-sufficiency.

On Wednesday, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad oversaw the insertion of the first Iranian domestically made fuel rod into a research reactor in northern Tehran, the country's official IRNA news agency reported. Separately, the semiofficial Fars agency reported that a "new generation of Iranian centrifuges" had been installed and had gone into operation at the country's main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in central Iran.

The moves were aimed at showing that Iran is mastering the entire cycle of producing nuclear fuel on its own despite the restrictions of sanctions that have hampered its ability to procure materials from abroad. In the fuel cycle, mined uranium is processed into gas, then spun in centrifuges to purify it. Lowenriched uranium - at around 3.5% - is used to produce fuel rods that power a reactor; however, the same process can be used to produce highly enriched uranium - at around 90% purity - that can be used to build a warhead.

The Tehran facility where IRNA said the new fuel rods were installed is a research reactor intended to produce medical isotopes used in the treatment of cancer patients. It requires fuel enriched to around 20%, considered a threshold between low and high enriched uranium. Iran has been producing uranium enriched up to 5% for years, and began enriching up to near 20% in February 2010 after attempts at a deal with the West to import the fuel rods broke down. In January, Iran said it had produced its first such fuel rod.