News story

Foreign Office Minister expresses concern over uranium production in Iran

Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham has spoken after Iran announced that it has started to transfer centrifuges to the Fordow plant at Qom in order to triple its capacity to produce 20% enriched uranium.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

“Enrichment of natural uranium to 20 percent is the most time consuming and resource-intensive step in making the highly enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon.

“Iran has no plausible civilian use for this material and should explain its actions to the world. Such enrichment is also clearly in contravention of UN Security Council Resolutions”

Published 24 August 2011