Natanz Nuclear Facility in Iran. Photo: Hamed Saber.

Iran, following a lack of progress in nuclear talks last week with the six world powers, has opened two news uranium mills and a milling plant, Reuters reported, citing the Iranian state news agency IRNA.

The new Saghand 1 and 2 mines and the Shahid Rezaeinejad yellowcake plant, which became operational on National Nuclear Technology Day in Iran, give the Islamic Republic “greater self-sufficiency in making the raw materials for enrichment to nuclear fuel and, potentially, for warhead-grade material,” according to Reuters.

“Iran has invested in the Saghand mine to help it develop an independent source of uranium for its nuclear requirements but project development has proceeded very slowly,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank said in a 2011 report on the Saghdad uranium deposits.

In a speech at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization on Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Western countries have “tried their utmost to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but Iran has gone nuclear.”

“This nuclear technology and power and science have been institutionalized… All the stages are in our control and every day that we go forward a new horizon opens up before the Iranian nation,” Ahmadinejad said.