Iran says starts work on new enrichment plant

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the sites for new uranium enrichment plants in Iran, a close aide said on Monday, despite growing world pressure to stop the sensitive nuclear work.

"The president has confirmed the designated location of a new nuclear site and on his order the building process has begun," Ahmadinejad's senior adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi told Iran’s ILNA news agency.

"New locations on which the plants should be constructed this year have been determined and initial construction is underway," Samareh-Hashemi was quoted as saying.

He said that the designs of the new plants were currently under study but did not specify how many new facilities had been approved.

Defying Western pressure to curb its sensitive nuclear work, Iran announced in November it planned to expand its enrichment activities by building 10 new sites. The announcement was condemned by the United states and its European allies.

Iran currently enriches uranium at a plant in the central city of Natanz in defiance of repeated U.N. Security Council ultimatums to suspend the sensitive process.

The president has confirmed the designated location of a new nuclear site and on his order the building process has begun

Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi

Plans for two plants

In April, Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said that plans for two new enrichment plants had been submitted to Ahmadinejad and their construction would start in the first half of the Iranian year, which runs to March 2011.

Iran is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions and the possibility of a fourth looms large as Washington steps up efforts to secure agreement at the Security Council.

The five veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are currently engaged in intense negotiations over the details of a new package.

China, which has emerged as Iran's main economic partner in recent years, is still insisting on a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

The standoff worsened after talks between the major powers and Iran failed to produce agreement on proposals for the supply of nuclear fuel drafted by the U.N. nuclear watchdog in October last year.

The deal envisaged Iran shipping its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for the supply by Russia and France of the higher-enriched uranium fuel required for a Tehran medical research reactor.

But the negotiations ran into difficulty after Iran insisted that the exchange happen simultaneously and on its own soil, conditions rejected by the major powers.

A deal in "two weeks"

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki insisted on Sunday that a deal could still be done in "two weeks" if there was the diplomatic will.

He said Iran planned to open negotiations with all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council in search of an agreement.

"In the coming days, we have plans to have direct talks with 14 members of the Security Council and one (set of) indirect talks with a member," he said, in reference to Washington, which does not have diplomatic ties with Tehran.

"The talks will focus on the fuel exchange. They will be conducted by Iran's missions in those countries," he told a press conference after a two-day nuclear disarmament conference hosted by Tehran.

Mottaki's remarks are not expected to assuage the growing exasperation of Western governments, who are still furious over Iran's decision to start enriching uranium itself in February to the 20-percent level required by the Tehran research reactor.

In the coming days, we have plans to have direct talks with 14 members of the Security Council and one (set of) indirect talks with a member

Iranian FM Manouchehr Mottaki