Iran is increasing its stockpile of enriched uranium despite international opposition. The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi has said that Iran now has 30 kg of 20% enriched uranium on Wednesday. This is twice the amount reported in June this year.
Iran is currently under four sets of sanctions from the United Nations for its refusal to stop enriching uranium. The European Union and other countries have also imposed penalties on Iran due to concerns that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
However Iran says that its uranium is being produced for peaceful needs including fuelling a medical reactor. The European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has proposed a mid November meeting with Iran in Vienna to discuss its nuclear program. She will be representing Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
A nuclear deal drafted by the UN atomic watchdog aimed at providing fuel for a Tehran research reactor hit a deadlock earlier this year. Then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered Iran's atomic body to begin refining uranium to 20% in the month of February.
Iran is also preparing to mine uranium at Bandar Abbas where it has discovered good vein deposits. Bandar Abbas is the capital of Hormozgân Province on the southern coast of Iran, on the Persian Gulf.