Iran S Atomic Energy Organization

After months of anticipation, the United States, Iran and other world powers on Monday set an Oct. 1 date to meet and potentially discuss Iran's nuclear program, which remains a source of concern to the West and Israel. While the Obama administration has reversed U.S. policy by agreeing to meet on the nuclear issue without preconditions, Iran has all but ruled out talks over halting its production of reactor-grade nuclear fuel, the West's central worry. "We believe that nuclear technology, the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear energy, is our sovereign right," Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told reporters in Vienna on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Iran's top nuclear official offered hope that Tehran may be flexible in upcoming international talks about its disputed nuclear program, indicating that the regime may be willing to halt production of the enriched uranium that most worries the West. Fereydoun Abbasi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said in an Iranian TV interview broadcast Monday that Iran wants only enough 20%-enriched uranium for its medical needs. The United States and its European allies are worried that Iran could refine the 20%-enriched uranium it is producing into weapons-grade fuel for a nuclear bomb in a matter of months.

Two days after the world's atomic energy watchdog rebuked Iran for building a small undisclosed uranium enrichment facility, the Islamic Republic's Cabinet today ordered a dramatic expansion of the nuclear program that would include 10 more nuclear plants. If completed, the plan to build nuclear enrichment facilities on the scale of the industrial-size 50,000-centrifuge in the town of Natanz would provide Iran with enough enriched uranium to produce 20,000 megawatts of electricity within six years, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.

Iran offered on Monday to open its nuclear program to five years of "full supervision" by the U.N. atomic energy agency if the world body lifts its sanctions, but made clear that it would forge ahead with its programs for uranium enrichment regardless. The offer from Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, came amid a new increase in warnings internationally over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. That was led by a report Friday in which the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said it was "increasingly concerned" that Tehran may be developing its uranium-enrichment program to produce nuclear payloads for missiles.

In an apparent move away from confrontation with the West, Tehran will permit international inspectors later this month to visit what until recently had been a covert underground uranium enrichment plant, a U.N. official announced today. The decision to open the plant to inspectors on Oct. 25 was a concession by Tehran to diffuse Western criticism over the intent and scope of its nuclear program. In a meeting with world powers last week, Iran agreed in principle to grant the United Nation's nuclear enforcement agency access to the facility, which President Obama had criticized as a "direct challenge" to global nuclear nonproliferation.

Iran executed an electronics salesman convicted of relaying information on the country's nuclear program and other sensitive data to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, a judiciary spokesman said. Ali Ashtari was hanged Monday; he had been sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Tehran, spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said. It was Iran's first known conviction for espionage linked to Israel in almost a decade. Ashtari was found guilty of relaying sensitive information to Israel on military, defense and research centers that the 45-year-old electronics salesman supplied, Jamshidi said.

A powerful bomb blast killed one of Iran's leading nuclear scientists this morning in a leafy north Tehran district as he left home for work, officials said. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, was described by colleagues as a respected Tehran University nuclear physicist. Reformist websites and two students also described him as an outspoken supporter of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi. But hard-line Iranian officials immediately blamed Israel and the West for the assassination, which came at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program.

Shahram Amiri sounds like a contented man in one video, nestled in a leather chair, assuring his audience that he is free and safe to continue his education in America. But, in a second clip, the Iranian scientist warns in stilted phrases that the CIA kidnapped him, brought him to the United States and tortured him with the goal of "proving lies" about Iran's disputed nuclear program. The two online videos sum up the murky and contradictory narratives at the heart of Amiri's tale, which took a surprising turn Monday when the 32-year-old scientist presented himself at the Iranian consular office in Washington saying he wished to go home.

Iran's top diplomat accused the United States and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of kidnapping one of its nuclear scientists. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters that Shahram Amiri, who worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a summer religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He said Tehran had evidence that the U.S. was involved in the disappearance. "The U.S. should give back our compatriots based on the call of their family and people," Mottaki told reporters during an appearance with his United Arab Emirates counterpart, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Reporting from Beirut — Iranian officials trumpeted new nuclear and military ambitions Monday in the face of domestic political discord and stepped-up international talk of tightening economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, announced that Tehran had informed the United Nations' nuclear watchdog that it intended to launch construction of 10 new nuclear-fuel plants in the Persian calendar year starting March 2010 and begin producing 20%-enriched uranium to provide fuel for a Tehran medical reactor.

Shahram Amiri sounds like a contented man in one video, nestled in a leather chair, assuring his audience that he is free and safe to continue his education in America. But, in a second clip, the Iranian scientist warns in stilted phrases that the CIA kidnapped him, brought him to the United States and tortured him with the goal of "proving lies" about Iran's disputed nuclear program. The two online videos sum up the murky and contradictory narratives at the heart of Amiri's tale, which took a surprising turn Monday when the 32-year-old scientist presented himself at the Iranian consular office in Washington saying he wished to go home.

Reporting from Beirut — In a ratcheting up of official U.S. rhetoric against Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flatly accused Tehran on Monday of trying to build nuclear bombs and painted the Islamic Republic as an imminent military dictatorship increasingly ruled by the elite Revolutionary Guard. But Clinton also denied the U.S. was planning to launch a war against Iran, saying Washington was instead trying to rally nations to economically pressure Tehran into curbing sensitive aspects of its nuclear program.

As Iran moved to enrich uranium to a higher level of purity and build new nuclear-fuel plants, U.S. and French defense officials suggested Monday that sanctions were needed to force Tehran to curb its nuclear program. Speaking in Paris, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates again dismissed military action but said that given Iran's rejections of Western proposals, the international community needed to apply some pressure. "We must still try and find a peaceful way to resolve this issue.

Reporting from Beirut — Iranian officials trumpeted new nuclear and military ambitions Monday in the face of domestic political discord and stepped-up international talk of tightening economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, announced that Tehran had informed the United Nations' nuclear watchdog that it intended to launch construction of 10 new nuclear-fuel plants in the Persian calendar year starting March 2010 and begin producing 20%-enriched uranium to provide fuel for a Tehran medical reactor.

A powerful bomb blast killed one of Iran's leading nuclear scientists this morning in a leafy north Tehran district as he left home for work, officials said. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, was described by colleagues as a respected Tehran University nuclear physicist. Reformist websites and two students also described him as an outspoken supporter of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi. But hard-line Iranian officials immediately blamed Israel and the West for the assassination, which came at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program.

Iran's top diplomat accused the United States and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday of kidnapping one of its nuclear scientists. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters that Shahram Amiri, who worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a summer religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. He said Tehran had evidence that the U.S. was involved in the disappearance. "The U.S. should give back our compatriots based on the call of their family and people," Mottaki told reporters during an appearance with his United Arab Emirates counterpart, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Iran offered on Monday to open its nuclear program to five years of "full supervision" by the U.N. atomic energy agency if the world body lifts its sanctions, but made clear that it would forge ahead with its programs for uranium enrichment regardless. The offer from Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, came amid a new increase in warnings internationally over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. That was led by a report Friday in which the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said it was "increasingly concerned" that Tehran may be developing its uranium-enrichment program to produce nuclear payloads for missiles.

In an apparent move away from confrontation with the West, Tehran will permit international inspectors later this month to visit what until recently had been a covert underground uranium enrichment plant, a U.N. official announced today. The decision to open the plant to inspectors on Oct. 25 was a concession by Tehran to diffuse Western criticism over the intent and scope of its nuclear program. In a meeting with world powers last week, Iran agreed in principle to grant the United Nation's nuclear enforcement agency access to the facility, which President Obama had criticized as a "direct challenge" to global nuclear nonproliferation.