'Iran ready for higher enrichment'

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hinted yesterday that Tehran would itself pursue uranium enrichment to higher levels if the West spurns its offer of a phased fuel swap, promising Iranians "sweet" news soon.

Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran will make an announcement regarding the enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent purity when the nation next month marks the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution which toppled the US-backed shah.

"Iran has given a chance to Western countries," he was quoted as saying by Fars news agency when asked by reporters about Iran's deadline to world powers over the controversial nuclear fuel deal.

"Therefore, during the 10 days of dawn (February 1 to 11) we will announce good news regarding the production of 20 per cent enriched fuel in our country," he said of the period marking the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"This news is so sweet that it will make any Iranian and any freedom-loving person in the world happy. This news is about Iran's scientific advancement," Fars quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying.

The UN atomic watchdog has offered a proposal which sees the bulk of Iran's low-enriched uranium of 3.5 per cent purity being sent to Russia and France in one batch for further enrichment to 20 per cent and then returned as fuel for a Tehran research reactor.

Enriched uranium of 20 per cent purity is used as fuel to power nuclear reactors and Iran needs it for its internationally monitored Tehran facility.

Iranian officials, however, have offered a counter-proposal of a phased fuel swap and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki gave the West an end-January deadline to accept the Iranian plan.

World powers led by Washington are against Iran enriching uranium as it can also used to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.

The West suspect Iran wants enriched uranium - despite three sets of UN sanctions - so that it can make atomic weapons. Tehran says its nuclear programme is aimed solely at generating electricity.

Western powers have indicated that Iran has effectively rejected the UN-brokered proposal put forward in Vienna talks hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.

But Mr Mottaki insists Iran has not rejected "the principle" of the nuclear fuel deal.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, amid increasing international frustration with Tehran, has vowed Washington "will not be waited out" and "not back down" in the face of Iranian defiance.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, meanwhile, will travel to Moscow tomorrow for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to ISNA news agency.

Moscow has long been a nuclear partner of Tehran and has built Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr but it is still to be operational.

On Thursday Russian atomic energy chief Sergei Kiriyenko said the Bushehr plant would start up this year.

"All the work is going as scheduled. The tests are a success. This year will be the year of the launch of Bushehr," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

In recent months Mr Medvedev has indicated that Moscow could back fresh sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear programme.

Earlier this week Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow does "regret" Iran's refusal to accept the UN-brokered fuel plan.

He noted that the UN Security Council had the capacity to "study further measures on Iran" but did not come out explicitly in support of further sanctions.

"Acting with a logic of punishing Iran... is not a sober approach," he said.

Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, an influential Iranian lawmaker with close ties to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reiterated yesterday that Tehran will not give up its right to nuclear technology.