Iran is to transfer its 20% uranium enrichment activities to the Fordo site, and triple its production capacity, the country’s nuclear chief said Wednesday.

Iran is to transfer its 20% uranium enrichment activities to the Fordo site, and triple its production capacity, the country's nuclear chief said Wednesday.

"We will transfer the 20% enrichment from Natanz to the Fordo site this year, under the supervision of the (International Atomic Energy) Agency," Fereydoon Abbasi Davani was quoted as saying by state television's website.
"We will also triple the (production) capacity. The 20% enrichment will not be stopped at Natanz until the production level is three times higher than its current rate," he said.

The Islamic Republic informed the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in February that the Fordo site was prepared to host centrifuges - machines which enrich uranium at supersonic speed - and that it would become operational in the summer.

Iran's uranium enrichment activities are currently undertaken in the central city of Natanz.
 In April, Abbasi Davani said that Iran would continue to enrich uranium to 20% purity to fuel "four to five (research) reactors" which he said Iran plans to build.

 Iran confirms its program is for peaceful ends. It insists that the program is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, which is believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear heads, is not a signatory for this treaty.