Iran self-sufficient in uranium concentrate powder

Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says the Islamic Republic has achieved self-sufficiency in producing yellow cake.

The first consignment of yellow cake was shipped from Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, to Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Salehi said in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Sunday.

According to the AEOI head, the Islamic Republic has become self-sufficient in entire fuel cycle. He expressed confidence that the country would face no problem in providing nuclear fuel for its power plants.

"Iran will witness no problem for yellow cake supplies anymore," he told reporters.

The Iranian official added that yellow cake had been previously imported to the country.

"Today, we are witnessing a very remarkable achievement. The ill-wishers and those who have a grudge against Iran have always made efforts to strike fear and despair into the younger Iranian generation, the academics, engineers and the Iranian nation," he further explained.

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

The uranium ore concentrate can be turned into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a gas used as feedstock for enriching uranium.

Salehi pointed to last week's terror attacks on two Iranian scientists in the Iranian capital of Tehran and said, "Assassination of Iranian scientists will not hamper our progress."

Terrorists detonated bombs in the cars of Dr. Majid Shahriari and Professor Fereydoun Abbasi, both professors at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, in separate locations on November 29.

Shahriari was killed immediately, but Abbasi and his wife sustained injuries and were transferred to hospital. Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi announced on Thursday that a number of the perpetrators of the attacks have been arrested.

Moslehi also said that the attacks had been carried out "with the support of Mossad, the CIA and the MI6," adding that the "arrested [members of the] terrorist group have admitted to having received training from foreign spy agencies."


/Press TV/