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Iran said Friday it would keep plans for 10 new enrichment plants secret until six months before they were ready to concentrate uranium into nuclear fuel, a policy sure to heighten tensions with the West over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Enriched uranium can fuel reactors or, with a little more concentration, atom bombs. Iran insists its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

The declaration on Friday drove home Iran’s new stance on reducing its cooperation with atomic inspectors, which began a week ago Friday when Iran angrily denounced a rebuke from the International Atomic Energy Agency over its once-secret enrichment plant near the holy city of Qum.

The agency’s board had called on Iran to immediately suspend construction at the mountainous site, and Tehran responded Sunday by announcing that it would build 10 new enrichment plants.

While it remained unclear when Iran could carry out such an ambitious building program or why it would need so many new plants, the announcement on Friday reopened a festering dispute between the United Nations nuclear agency and Iran over whether it is obliged to give advanced notification when planning nuclear plants.

A senior Iranian diplomat told IRNA, the of... >>>