Expect ''good nuclear news'' to night

TEHRAN, Apr 11 (Reuters) Iranians will hear ''good news'' on their country's nuclear programme on Tuesday night, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

The news is widely expected in Iranian media to be the announcement that Iran has enriched uranium to the 3.5 per cent level needed to fuel nuclear power stations like the one it is building at the Gulf port of Bushehr.

Such an announcement would be a big setback to UN efforts to get Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment work, as it has done before.

''After hearing all the good news tomorrow night, Iranians should prostrate themselves before almighty God,'' Ahmadinejad said in the northeastern city of Mashhad yesterday.

Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council after failing to convince the international community that its nuclear activities are aimed a producing only nuclear power, and not weapons.

The world body has demanded Iran suspend its uranium enrichment work and on March 29 asked the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report on Tehran's compliance in 30 days.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to visit Iran this week and any announcement of advances in uranium enrichment work by Iran could cast an embarrassing cloud over his visit.

Iranian nuclear officials have previously said enriching uranium to 3.5 per cent would require the operation of 164 centrifuges, which spin it at supersonic speeds to increase the concentration of uranium's most radioactive isotope.

The level of enrichment needed for warheads is far higher, but analysts says it will be unacceptable to many in Washington that even low-level enrichment is under way.

''After the good nuclear news, the psychological war against us will start,'' lawmaker Gholamreza Mesbahi-Moghaddam told a parliament session today.

''I can say there will be international media campaign against us in the next days because of the news the president will announce.'' Washington has said repeatedly it wants to resolve the nuclear standoff by diplomatic means. But analysts says advances in uranium enrichment technology by Iran may be the tripwire for the United States or Israel to take military action.

President George W Bush yesterday dismissed reports of plans for military strikes on Iran as ''wild speculation''.

''Our enemies cannot do a damn thing given the Iranian nation's persistence, and they know that,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state television.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told Reuters UN inspectors were today the visiting underground uranium-enrichment facilities near the central town of Natanz.

REUTERS SB PM1406