A senior adviser said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the location for a new uranium enrichment facility Iran plans to begin building over the next year. Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, Ahmadinejad's top adviser, does not specify the location for the facility, which would be Iran's third enrichment plant. He says work will begin “upon the president's order,” without specifying when, according to the ILNA news agency Monday. Iran approved plans in November to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, a dramatic expansion in defiance of UN demands it halt the program. Iran has said it plans to start work on two of them by March 2011. Iran's foreign minister said Monday that Tehran wants to discuss a nuclear fuel deal with UN Security Council members, in an apparent new push by Iran to revive talks with the international community. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by state radio as saying that Iranian delegations will “visit China, Russia, Lebanon and Uganda within the next 10 days to pursue talks.” Mottaki said Iran wants direct talks with all Council members except one, with which it will pursue indirect talks. He likely meant United States since Tehran and Washington don't have diplomatic relations. The talks halted after Iran last year rejected a UN-backed plan that offered nuclear fuel rods in exchange for Iran's stock of lower-level enriched uranium – a swap would have curbed Tehran's capacity to make a nuclear bomb. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “crippling sanctions” against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapons capability. In an interview broadcast Monday on ABC's “Good Morning America,” Netanyahu said he worries that the international community isn't acting aggressively enough to thwart Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
