Iran says it has produced 20kg of enriched uranium

London, July 12 (ANI): Iran has said it has produced around 20 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium, in defiance of the world powers who want them to suspend the controversial nuclear work.

According to a report in The Telegraph, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the refining of uranium to 20 per cent after a swap deal, aimed at providing nuclear fuel for the Tehran reactor and drafted by the UN atomic body in October, hit a deadlock.

"We have produced around 20 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium and we are working to produce the (fuel) plates," Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as telling the ISNA news agency.

On Sunday, Salehi reiterated his previous claim that by September next year Iran will on its own "deliver the fuel for the Tehran research reactor."

He had previously said that Iran has acquired the technical know-how to make the actual fuel plates, which power the reactor, a claim dismissed by Western powers.

World powers led by Washington want Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activity that they suspect masks a nuclear weapons drive.

On June 9, they backed a UN Security Council resolution for a fourth set of sanctions on Iran.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel to power nuclear reactors as well as to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.

Western powers say Iran does not possess the technology required to convert the 20 per cent enriched uranium into fuel plates for powering the reactor. (ANI)