Iran joins the Nuclear Club

Iran said on Tuesday it had produced low-grade enriched uranium suitable for power stations and wanted to achieve industrial-scale production, setting itself on a collision course with the West. The United Nations has said Iran must halt uranium enrichment, a process Western nations fear Tehran wants to master so that it can develop nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its aims are entirely peaceful. The United States, which has been leading the charge against Iran, said Tehran was "moving in the wrong direction" with its nuclear program and if it persisted, Washington would discuss possible next steps with the U.N. Security Council. "I am officially announcing that Iran has joined the group of those countries which have nuclear technology. This is the result of the Iranian nation's resistance," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised address. "Based on international regulations, we will continue our path until we achieve production of industrial-scale enrichment," he told officials and some ambassadors from regional states gathered in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Iran's Atomic Energy Organization head said earlier that Iran had enriched uranium to a level used in power plants, a major step forward in the country's nuclear program. "I am proud to announce that we have started enriching uranium to the 3.5 percent level," Gholamreza Aghazadeh said, adding that the pilot enrichment plant in Natanz, south of Tehran, was now working. Iran's announcement is a serious setback to U.N. Security Council efforts to have Tehran halt enrichment work and it could escalate a confrontation with Western powers leading to consideration of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.