Iran to build new enrichment plant in 2011

The AEOI has completed its studies on determining where to construct this plant and nine other uranium enrichment facilities, AEOI Director Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters on Monday.

The construction of one of these facilities will begin by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (ends March 20, 2011) or the beginning of the next Iranian calendar year, he added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Salehi said the Vienna group (the U.S., France, and Russia) has expressed its readiness, through media outlets, to hold talks on a nuclear fuel swap with Iran, but Tehran has not received any formal or written notice so far.

He stated that dialogue over a fuel exchange would be considered a step forward to build confidence and it would be useful for both sides.

MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi had previously said the Vienna group has accepted the Tehran nuclear declaration as the basis for resuming negotiations over a nuclear fuel exchange deal.

The Tehran nuclear deal, known as the Tehran Declaration, was signed by the foreign ministers of Iran, Turkey, and Brazil in Tehran on May 17. According to the deal, Iran would ship 1200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey to be exchanged for 120 kilograms of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel rods to power the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment.