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Iran has increased nuclear enrichment capacity
BY Paul Richter,
WASHINGTON — Iran has finished installing centrifuges at a fortified underground facility and can sharply increase production of enriched uranium to a purity that can be quickly improved to weapons grade, the United Nationsnuclear watchdog agency said Friday in a report likely to stir new concern in the West about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
According to the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has prepared 700 more centrifuges at the Fordow facility for operation since August, doubling the plant’s enrichment capacity. If all of them produced 20% enriched uranium, which can be improved to bomb grade with relative ease, it would cut to about three months, down from six, the time needed to accumulate enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.
