Iran announces plan to enrich uranium on a massive scale

IRAN intends to enrich uranium on a scale hundreds of times larger than its current level, the country's deputy nuclear chief said yesterday.

The move signals Iran's resolve to expand a programme the international community insists it halt.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Iran for the first time had succeeded on a small scale in enriching uranium, a key step in generating fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. The UN Security Council has demanded that Iran stop all enrichment activity because of suspicions that the programme's aim is to make weapons.