iran persists in nukes production

Iran's nuclear chief said the Islamic Republic was making plans to mass produce new centrifuges for uranium enrichment, Iran's media reported him as saying on Thursday. The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said the "new generation" of centrifuges still had to undergo various tests before they could be produced. A new generation of centrifuges is being built, but they should undergo all tests before mass production," Iran's Tasnim news quoted him as saying. Salehi added that his country currently has 19,000 centrifuges. He also lauded Iran's capability of "conducting the full fuel cycle of the nuclear fuel production from discovery to mining and from there to turning uranium to nuclear fuel,” according to Iran's official IRNA news agency. As part of a deal reached in November with six world powers in Geneva, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment capabilities and reduce the number of operational centrifuges already installed at the Fordow and at Natanz enrichment facilities. Iran was also to refrain from installing new centrifuges, and will be required to freeze all enrichment beyond 20 percent, according to the agreement with the P5+1 world powers.
http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iranian-nuclear-chief-Islamic-Republic-designing-new-centrifuges-336351

Leader Says Iran Wants to Repair Relations With U.S.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he wants to rebuild diplomatic relations with Western powers, even as he insists the country will “never never give up our right to nuclear energy.” Rouhani’s comments, in an op-ed in a German newspaper on Monday and accompanying Twitter messages on an account associated with him, came during a Christmas break in talks over Iran’s nuclear program. “We want to rebuild and improve our relations to European and North American countries on a basis of mutual respect,” Rouhani wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Reuters reports. “We are striving to avoid new burdens on relations between Iran and the United States and also to remove the tensions that we have inherited.” “We must now concentrate on the present and orientate ourselves towards the future,” read the messages on a closely followed Twitter account that has never been verified as belonging to Rouhani but has broken news of his policy positions and actions before. “We’ll never give up our right to #nuclear energy. But we’re working towards removing all doubts and answer all reasonable questions.”
http://world.time.com/2013/12/23/leader-says-iran-wants-to-repair-relations-with-u-s/