Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Monday that Iran has so far produced nearly 70 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Photo taken on Aug. 21, 2010 shows a view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran. [Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua]

Iran should convert 20 percent enriched uranium into fuel plates to feed the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment, Salehi was quoted as saying.

He said that Iran will start to produce plates of nuclear fuel for the Tehran research reactor in five months, said the report.

Iran has constructed a plant at the Isfahan nuclear facility for manufacturing nuclear fuel plates, according to Mehr.

In June, Iran's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Ali-Asghar Soltanieh said that Iran produced over 50 kg 20 percent enriched uranium till then.

Talking to Xinhua on the sidelines of an international nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran, Soltanieh said that "we need 120 kg enrichment up to 20 percent ... for Tehran reactor."

Referring to Iran's letter to the IAEA sent three years ago through which Iran called for receiving 20 percent enriched fuel, Salehi said Monday that the agency refused to accept Iran's offer then and the country had to start fuel enrichment on its own, said the local ISNA news agency.

Salehi said despite foreigners' claim that Iran was not capable of enriching uranium to the level of 20 percent purity, Iran managed to carry it out in a week following the order issued by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In February 2010, Salehi, the then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), announced that Iran began to produce 20 percent enriched uranium at its Natanz nuclear enrichment site.

In August, Fereidoon Abbasi, current head of the AEOI said that the Islamic Republic has started transferring the nuclear enrichment centrifuges of its Natanz nuclear facility to the Fordo atomic site.

In June, Abbasi said that Iran is going to install new generation of centrifuges in its uranium enrichment sites and will increase its 20-percent uranium enrichment output by three times.

He also said that in the current Iranian year ending on March 20, the enrichment of uranium to the level of 20 percent will be transferred from Natanz site to Fordo site in the central province of Qom under the supervision of the IAEA.

Iran will triple the 20-percent uranium enrichment output after the enrichment process is moved to Fordo, the Iranian nuclear chief said.

The West suspects that Iran's uranium enrichment may be meant for producing nuclear weapons, which has been denied by Iran, saying its nuclear program is only for peaceful use.

Iran is under expansive sanction pressures by the United Nations Security Council and the unilateral sanctions by the United States, European Union and other western countries over its controversial nuclear program.

On Monday, Salehi said that "Iran has always faced different sanctions and threats by western countries and they have become tougher recently. We were not economically and politically pressed that much over the past 32 years than we do now. It is a big challenge but we should use it as an opportunity."

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