Iran’s quest to possess nuclear technology

Iran said it has made advances in nuclear technology, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel.

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March 8, 2012

Iran's International Atomic Energy Agency ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh briefs the media during a board of governors meeting in Vienna. Six world powers demanded that Iran fulfil a promise to let international inspectors visit a military installation where the U.N. nuclear watchdog believes that explosives tests geared to developing atomic bombs may have taken place.

Herwig Prammer / Reuters

March 5, 2012

A U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Robert Wood, also attended the group's meeting, where the director general of the IAEA said his organization could not be sure that Iran's nuclear program did not have military aims.

Herwig Prammer / Reuters

Jan. 15, 2011

Iran's heavy water nuclear facilities are located near the central city of Arak, 150 miles southwest of Tehran. Iran has steadfastly balked at demands to halt its uranium enrichment, which Washington and its allies worry could be the foundation for a future nuclear weapons program.

Hamid Foroutan / AP

Aug. 13, 2004

A view of Parchin facilities in Iran, which were said to be possibly involved in nuclear weapons research.

HO/ DigitalGlobe/ISIS / AFP/Getty Images

Sept. 2007

An anti-aircraft gun stands at Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. Iran has put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation machines at a cavernous underground bunker that would allow it speed up production of material that can be used to arm nuclear warheads, diplomats tell The Associated Press, Feb. 18. While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing more efficient centrifuges at its Fordow facilty and could not say whether it was planning to.

Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP

Feb. 17, 2012

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, center, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad join hands after a news conference in Islamabad, Pakistan. Ahmadinejad, accused by the West of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, said on Friday that foreign nations were determined to dominate the region, which shouldn’t be allowed.

Mian Khursheed / Reuters

Feb. 15, 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks on next to scientists unveiling a fuel rod at the Tehran Research Reactor in Tehran. Iran trumpeted advances in nuclear technology on Wednesday, citing new uranium enrichment centrifuges and domestically made reactor fuel, in a move abetting a drift toward confrontation with the West over its disputed atomic ambitions.

/ Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is escorted by technicians during a tour of Tehran's Research Reactor center in northern Tehran. In defiant swipes at its foes, Iran said it is dramatically closer to mastering the production of nuclear fuel.

/ AP

Feb. 15, 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second from left, is escorted by technicians during a tour of Tehran's Research Reactor center in northern Tehran.

/ AP

Feb. 15, 2012

A poster of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is seen next to bank of centrifuges in what is described by Iranian state television as a facility in Natanz, Iran.

/ Reuters

Feb. 15, 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad watches from a control room as nuclear fuel rods are loaded into the Tehran Research Reactor in Tehran.

/ Reuters

Feb. 15, 2012

Workers are seen in what is described by Iranian state television as an enrichment control room at a facility in Natanz, Iran.

/ Reuters

Feb. 15, 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses staff next to a poster with a picture of late Ayatollah Khomeini, during a tour of Tehran's Research Reactor center in northern Tehran.

/ AP

April 8, 2008

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility, some 200 miles south of Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is now on the threshold of nuclear capability, after foreign scientists helped the country overcome key hurdles to acquire a nuclear weapon.

/ AP

April 9, 2009

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second right, waves during a visit to Iran's Fuel Manufacturing Plant, a facility that produces uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor, just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran. The West fears the reactor could eventually be used for producing a nuclear weapon. The plant will produce pellets of uranium oxide to fuel the heavy-water research reactor.

Vahid Salemi / AP

An exterior view of the Bushehr nuclear reactor site in the south of Iran.

Yalda Moaiery / Bloomberg

July 6, 2002

The Bushehr nuclear power plant, dome in top center, in Bushehr, Iran. Iran's first nuclear power plant — which the United States claims can be used to make nuclear bombs — is nearing completion and all major components are installed, Iranian officials said.

/ AP

April 25, 2010

An Iranian Saeqeh missile is launched during war games in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow strategically located waterway through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil supplies pass. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard fired five missiles as part of an ongoing three-day military drill, with Fars news agency naming two of those tested as the Noor (Light) and Nasr (Victory) missiles. It said a third, unnamed missile was also fired. The Islamic republic's missile program has raised concerns in the West, which is already at odds with Tehran over its controversial nuclear project.

Mehdi Marizad / AFP/Getty Images

April 9, 2007

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a ceremony in Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. Iran announced that it has begun enriching uranium with 3,000 centrifuges, a major expansion of a nuclear program that has drawn U.N. sanctions and condemnation from the West. Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony at the enrichment facility that Iran is now capable of enriching nuclear fuel "on an industrial scale."

Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP

Sept. 26, 2009

A facility located about 20 miles northeast of Qom, Iran, is under construction inside a mountain. A senior official from a U.N nuclear agency believes Iran plans to start enriching uranium at the previously secret facility.

/ AP

March 30, 2005

An aerial photo shows a Uranium Conversion Facility just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran.

Vahid Salemi / AP

Nov. 2, 2006

Iran's Revolutionary Guard tests missiles in a central desert area of Iran, including the long-range Shahab-3, during the first hours of new military maneuvers, Iranian state-run television said.

Sajjad Safari / AP

Oct. 4, 2009

Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, attends a joint press conference with the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, unseen, in Tehran. The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency on Sunday described a "shifting of gears" in the controversy over Iran's nuclear program, and said inspectors would visit the country's new uranium processing.

Vahid Salemi / AP

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