Iran will inform the UN nuclear watchdog on progress in its 10 new uranium enrichment plants only six months ahead of injecting gas into the sites which it plans to build, the state news agency said Friday. In a major expansion of its nuclear program and in retaliation for last week's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution, Tehran said Sunday it would build 10 more uranium enrichment sites like its Natanz IAEA-monitored underground one. The IAEA resolution, passed last Friday, censured Iran for covertly constructing a second enrichment plant near Qom, demanding a construction halt. A senior Iranian diplomat, involved in nuclear talks with the West, said Iran had no intention to cooperate with the agency beyond its safeguards, the official IRNA news agency reported. “According to the safeguards, after installation of equipments (centrifuges) and only 180 days ahead of injecting gas into centrifuges ... we should inform the IAEA,” Abolfazl Zohrehvand told IRNA. “And we will act within the framework of the safeguard,” said Zohrehvand, Iran's former ambassador to Italy. The United States and Germany warned Iran Thursday, saying Tehran was rapidly approaching a December deadline to accept a UN-brokered nuclear deal with Western powers. Iran rejected the deal, calling on the country to send some 75 percent of its Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) to Russia and France to be turned into fuel for a Tehran medical research reactor. The West hoped that farming out a large amount of Iran's LEU reserve for reprocessing into fuel will minimise the risk of Iran's refining the material to high purity suitable for bombs. Iranian hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday Iran would purify its uranium stockpile to the level needed for Tehran medical reactor, seen as a step toward the highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear warhead. In talks with six world powers in Geneva on Oct. 1, Iran agreed in principle to the deal but has since balked. Iran has until the end of the year to agree to it or face the threat of tougher sanctions. US President Barack Obama's efforts to engage Iran with confidence-building measures have so far been fruitless. Ahmadinejad ruled out further talks with six major powers on Iran's atomic work, which the West fears is a cover to build bombs. Iran denies the charge. University crackdown As they gear up for a major anti-government protest Monday, Iranian students are besieged by a clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions. At the same time, authorities are intensifying enforcement of morals on women's dress and men's hair length as a way to punish political dissent. They say authorities have cracked down at campuses nationwide to prevent the demonstrations from becoming widespread and that students recruited by the pro-government Basij militiamen are on the watch, informing on classmates suspected of being pro-opposition “troublemakers.” On Thursday police warned of a tough response, especially if demonstrators try to move outside campuses into the streets.
