Iran's Ahmadinejad inaugurates new atomic project

ARAK, Iran, Aug 26 (Reuters) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today inaugurated on Saturday a new phase in the Arak heavy-water reactor project, part of Iran's atomic programme which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs.

A Reuters witness said the president inaugurated the project and toured the site at Khondab, which is near Arak 120 miles 190 km southwest of the capital Tehran. The plant's plutonium by-product could be used to make atomic warheads.

The move came days before a UN deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, the part of the programme which is the biggest worry to the West. But the latest development is likely to raise further fears in Western capitals.

''Inaugurating the heavy water production plant in Arak is a big step towards using Iran's right, which means reaching peaceful nuclear technology,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by state television as saying.

An Iranian nuclear official said this week that heavy water production itself was not a proliferation risk but a Western diplomat said such a move would not be a constructive step.

Western nations accuse Iran of seeking to master technology to produce nuclear weapons. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists its aim is only for electricity.

A small group of correspondents from foreign news organisations were taken with Iranian journalists to Khondab, the site near Arak where the heavy-water project is being built, to attend the presidential speech.

The complex was protected by dozens of anti-aircraft guns and surrounded by a four-metre high barbed wire fence. Photographers and TV journalists were asked not to take any images except in areas where they were specifically permitted.

The Iranian nuclear official had said Iran would start up heavy-water production but not the reactor. He said this unit had no military use so supervision by the UN watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was not obligatory.

''The product of this project provides for cooling and depleting systems of the reactor, that can be used in various industries,'' the official had told Reuters.

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