UN: Iran to Start Once Secret Facility

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks about Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaks about Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.
Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP
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(VIENNA) — A senior official says the U.N nuclear agency believes Iran plans to start enriching uranium at a previously secret facility in 2011.

The official says the International Atomic Energy Agency also believes that the site near the holy city of Qom will be able to house 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges.

A senior international official familiar with a new IAEA report said Monday that number could allow Iran to enrich enough material to be able to arm one nuclear warhead a year. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the restricted nature of the information.

Iran denies it wants a nuclear weapons program, saying it is enriching only to create nuclear fuel.

See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle.

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FARHAD AFSHAR, head of the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland, after Swiss voters passed a referendum imposing a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques

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