Iran defies West by enriching uranium

IRAN has started putting uranium feedstock gas into centrifuges, defying the West with actual enrichment work on making what can be nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material, diplomats said yesterday.

Uranium enrichment is seen as a red line by the United States and the EU in the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear programme, as it is crucial to making atomic weapons.

Putting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas into centrifuges, which distill out enriched uranium, is a major escalation by Iran in its a nuclear program, which the US claims hides atomic weapons development.