"Iran won't have much of a problem enriching to 20 percent," British academic Elahe Mohtasham, a specialist in nuclear non-proliferation issues, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, February 8.

"It's not difficult to go from 3.5 percent to 20 percent because it uses the same technology."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday ordered enriching uranium to 20 percent.

“We do have the capability of going to 20 percent,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told AFP.

“And we have the capability to work on the fabrication of the fuel rods.”

Tehran has officially notified the UN nuclear watchdog of its plans to enrich uranium at higher levels and invited IAEA inspectors to attend the process.

"Iran's official letter about commencing the 20 percent enrichment activity in order to provide fuel for the Tehran reactor has been handed over to the IAEA," Soltanieh said.

Iran and the West are at loggerheads over a UN-sponsored deal, under which Iran would send about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France in exchange for more highly enriched fuel to produce medical isotopes.

The West demands Iran to accept the deal, while Tehran insists that the low-enriched uranium swap should happen on stages.

The West accuses Tehran of developing a secret nuclear weapons program.

Iran insists that its nuclear program only aims at procuring power to feed an increasing local consumption.

Doubts

Western diplomats, however, cast doubts on Iran’s capability to turn the enriched uranium into fuel.

"They can't manufacture the fuel assemblies," said one diplomat close to the UN watchdog.

Observers say that Tehran lacks the critical step of turning the enriched uranium into fuel rods for nuclear reactors.

“The Iranians were seeing technical and operational problems at their plant in Natanz, because the most recent centrifuges have been installed very rapidly," another Western diplomat said.

“They would be capable of doubling their uranium production overnight. But they don't appear to have the technical capacity to turn the 20-percent enriched uranium into the fuel rods for their research reactor.”

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also said that Iran does not have the capacity to enrich uranium for use in its research reactor.

   "The Iranians do not know how to make fuel for their existing medical reactor," he told reporters in Paris.

"For what purposes do they want to enrich it to 20 percent?"

Nevertheless, experts insist that Tehran is capable of turning the enriched uranium into fuel.

“The technology for enriching uranium is basically the same whether you are enriching it at 3.5 percent for use in power reactors, or 20 percent for use in the Tehran research reactor, or 93 percent for use in nuclear weapons,” said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.