Iran: We have enriched uranium

~ With dancers and celebration, Iran waves uranium vials in front of the world.

TEHRAN, Iran -- The nuclear breakthrough was announced with elaborate fanfare. Dancers in traditional costumes paraded on stage, waving vials said to contain raw uranium. Military commanders and top clerics waved their fists, chanting, "God is great."

The hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then proclaimed on national television that Iran had joined the nuclear club after successfully enriching uranium for the first time.

Ahmadinejad insisted Tuesday that his country's nuclear program is peaceful, aimed only at generating electricity. But the announcement was certain to heighten international tensions. The U.N. Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment by April 28 because of suspicions the program is designed to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad warned the West that trying to force it to abandon uranium enrichment would "cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts of Iranians."

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, was heading to Iran on Wednesday for talks aimed at resolving the standoff. The timing of the announcement suggested Iran wanted to present him with a fait accompli and argue that it cannot be expected to entirely give up a program showing progress.

Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful member of Iran's ruling clerical regime, said the breakthrough means ElBaradei "faces new circumstances."

The White House, which is pressing for U.N. sanctions against Iran, said the enrichment claims "show that Iran is moving in the wrong direction."

"Defiant statements and actions only further isolate the regime from the rest of the world," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Uranium enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear energy reactor -- as Iran says it seeks -- or the material needed for an atomic warhead.

Tuesday's announcement does not mean Iran is immediately capable of doing either. So far it has succeeded only in getting a series of 164 centrifuges to work in the enrichment process. Thousands of centrifuges are needed for a workable program.

But successfully carrying out the highly complicated and delicate process even on a small scale would be a breakthrough, and Iran's nuclear chief said the program would be expanded to 3,000 centrifuges by the end of the year.

Ahmadinejad announced it at a nationally televised ceremony clearly aimed at drumming up popular Iranian support for the nuclear program. In one of Iran's holiest cities, Mashhad, he addressed an audience made up of top military commanders -- including the head of the elite Revolutionary Guard -- and senior clerics.

Before he spoke, screens on the stage showed footage of nuclear facilities and scientists at work. A troupe in traditional costumes danced waving vials said to contain yellowcake -- raw uranium -- that were to be kept at a shrine in the city.

"At this historic moment, with the blessings of God Almighty and the efforts made by our scientists, I declare here that the laboratory-scale nuclear fuel cycle has been completed and young scientists produced enriched uranium needed to the degree for nuclear power plants Sunday," Ahmadinejad said.

"I formally declare that Iran has joined the club of nuclear countries," he said. The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu akbar," or "God is great."

Ahmadinejad said the West "has to respect Iran's right for nuclear energy."

Iran "relies on the sublime beliefs that lie within the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our nation does not get its strength from nuclear arsenals," he said.

He said Iran wanted to operate its nuclear program under supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency and within its rights and the regulations the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In Vienna, officials of the IAEA, whose inspectors are now in Iran, declined to comment on the announcement.

But a diplomat familiar with Tehran's enrichment program said it appeared to be accurate. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss information restricted to the agency.

Speaking before the president, Iran's nuclear chief -- Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh -- told the audience that Iran has produced 110 tons of uranium gas, the feedstock that is pumped into centrifuges for enrichment.

The amount is nearly twice the 60 tons that Iran said last year that it had produced -- an amount that former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright said would be enough to produce up to 20 nuclear bombs if Iran developed the capacity.

Aghazadeh also said a heavy water nuclear reactor, under construction near Arak in central Iran, will be completed by early 2009. The U.S. fears that the spent fuel from a heavy-water reactor can be reprocessed to extract plutonium for use in a bomb.

The IAEA is due to report to the U.N. Security Council on April 28 whether Iran has met its demand for a full halt to uranium enrichment. If Tehran has not complied, the council will consider the next step. The U.S. and Europe are pressing for sanctions against Iran, a step Russia and China have so far opposed.

Enrichment is one of the most difficult steps in developing a nuclear program, requiring a complicated plumbing network of pipes connecting centrifuges that must operate flawlessly for months or years.