JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel is not ruling out any option for dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat, Ehud Barak said as Iran announced it has 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium.
"Time is running out," Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post reported. "Clear and decisive sanctions against the Iranian regime alongside readiness to consider necessary actions, in case the sanctions don’t work, are necessary."
Also Wednesday, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization chief announced the jump in the number of working centrifuges the country had operating at the country’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, the Islamic Republic’s independent Fars News Agency reported. Gholam Reza Aghazadeh also said that more would be operating by next year.
The announcement came as Iranian and visiting Russian officials tested the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the first nuclear power plant built in Iran. Aghazadeh said the test was going well, the Associated Press reported. Test runs usually occur a few months before the reactor is ready to start up.
The Bushehr plant will run on enriched uranium that is being imported from Russia. The fuel could later be turned into plutonium for nuclear warheads, a concern of Israel, the United States and other Western countries.
Iran says its nuclear program is strictly domestic, for generating electricity.
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