TEHRAN (AP) — Iran claimed Wednesday that it has taken two major steps toward mastering the production of nuclear fuel, a defiant move in response to increasingly tough Western sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.
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 news 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.
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The West suspects Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at producing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting it’s geared for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.
