Iran produces first uranium yellowcake ahead of talks

Iran has produced its first batch of uranium yellowcake, the raw material for enrichment, from a mine in the south of the country, atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday a day before the Islamic state resumes talks with world powers.

The news appeared designed to signal Iran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear activities, which it says are for peaceful power generation but the West fears are aimed at making bombs, ahead of the Dec. 6-7 meeting in Geneva.

"The West had counted on the possibility of us being in trouble over raw material but today we had the first batch of yellowcake from Gachin mine sent to Isfahan (conversion) facility," Salehi said on state television.

The atomic chief said the new step made Iran "self-sufficient" in the entire nuclear fuel cycle as it had previously been obliged to import yellowcake from abroad but he declined to reveal the amount of the first domestically produced batch.

"We cannot cover the overall need of the Isfahan facility but we will produce a significant part of it" from the Gachin mine near the Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas, Salehi said.

Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns about Iran's nuclear activities as the process can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or in highly extended form the fissile core of an atom bomb.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived in a reaction from yellowcake, a concentrate processed from mined uranium ore.

Enriched uranium can be used to fuel power plants and, if refined much further, to provide material for bombs. The West wants Iran to suspend enrichment, something Tehran has refused.

"Over the next five years we hope we can reach a point when Iran can meet all nuclear fuel needs inside the country," Salehi said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran's uranium enrichment will not be discussed at the Geneva talks, though it is the central concern of the six world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany -- that will be present.