Iran to reduce uranium enrichment for nuke fuel

Iran will suspend uranium enrichment to 20 percent if it acquires nuclear fuel for a research reactor, the country's atomic chief said on an Iranian television channel yesterday.
"We will not need to enrich to 20 percent if our needs are met" for fuel to power the Tehran reactor, Ali Akbar Salehi said, quoted by Al-Alam Arabic-language channel.
"We started enriching to 20 percent to meet our needs. We have no wish to draw on our reserves" of 3.5-percent enriched uranium (low-enriched uranium, or LEU) to produce 20-percent enriched uranium, he added.
The UN Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions against the Islamic republic, demanding it stop enriching uranium in a programme which Western powers fear conceals efforts to make a nuclear weapon.