According to Khabar Online correspondent, earlier on February 11 coinciding with the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution's victory, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “We will announce good news on Iran's nuclear progress in near future.”
The analysts who follow the Islamic republic's nuclear program had predicted that such atomic advancement must have been related to the issue of nuclear fuel rods. The Western media referred to Fordo plant built inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom as the center where they supposed uranium enrichment up to 20% will take place.
However when Ali Baqeri, deputy of foreign policy and international affairs of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an interview with Russia's Ria Novosti News Agency, the issue was formally announced. Ria Novosti said the insertion of such rods “would make a significant step forward in Iran’s nuclear program.”
Experts also regard loading nuclear fuel rods as a making further advancement in the Islamic republic's of Iran’s nuclear program which came to reality on Wednesday as the first nuclear fuel rods were loaded into Tehran Research Reactor at a ceremonial event attended by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Commenting on the production of uranium enriched up to 20%, Baqeri asserted: “Because the Western countries refused to provide us with enriched uranium, we began to do it up to 20% to produce nuclear fuel rods.”
As nuclear the process of domestically produced nuclear fuel became operational, the issue of exchanging uranium enriched to 3.5 percent in Iran to be with 20 percent enriched uranium is not at stake anymore. As a matter of fact, from now on, such issue will be raised merely in some pages of history of Iran's nuclear program.
At the ceremonial event, Ahmadinejad unveiled the latest achievements of young Iranian nuclear scientists in the field of atomic energy which would demonstrate fantastic capability and mastery of young Iranian nuclear scientists to the world.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is pressed by the West over its nuclear program. Although Iran has cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA), recently a report of IAEA’s Board of Governors claimed Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon.
The report gave the US and the European Union (EU) a pretext to impose new economic sanctions on Tehran including on trade with Iran's Central Bank (CBI). Further pressures have also been used which put embargo on Iran’s oil products.
However, the Islamic Republic has categorically rejected such allegations stressing that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature and aimed at civilian purposes.
Despite all measures aimed to stop enriching uranium, the new advancement in Iranian nuclear technology sent the message that the Islamic Republic will still be defiant to the requirements of the West powers although it has not rejected further negotiations with them.
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi and the Secretary of Supreme National Security Council, Sa'eed Jalili have expressed Iran's readiness to follow nuclear talks in his response to a letter the European Union (EU) foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton.
The first round of the talks between Iran and the 5+1 group (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany) was held in December 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. The second round of negotiations took place in January 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland but did not arrive at a positive result.
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