Iran unveils nuclear acheivements

The Islamic Republic of Iran has unveiled three nuclear achievements in the country’s central province of Yazd on the occasion of the National Day of Nuclear Technology.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued on Tuesday the order to launch Shahid Rezaeinejad yellowcake production plant and Saghand uranium mines in Ardakan as well as the country’s first Rhodotron accelerator in the city of Taft.

The uranium extracted from Saghand mines in Yazd will be processed and turned into yellowcake in Shahid Rezaeinejad complex, which has the capacity to annually produce 60 tons of yellowcake.

The Iranian president said via video conferencing in the inauguration ceremony that the country’s nuclear industry is developing and that, every day, the Iranian nation is witnessing new achievements in the field.

Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores.

In December 2010, the first consignment of indigenous yellowcake was transferred to Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) from Gachin mines under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA).

Iran maintains that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has every right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.