That was quick…

(TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has completed a new phase in its Arak heavy-water reactor plant, a presidential official said on Saturday, referring to part of Iran’s atomic program which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs.

The official said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would give a speech later in the day “announcing that the heavy-water project has become operational”.

Iran is building a heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, 120 miles southwest of the capital Tehran. The plant’s plutonium by-product could be used to make atomic warheads.

Updated: They promise to use the reactor to help diagnose cancer.

(KHONDAB,Iran (AP) - An Iranian plant that produces heavy water officially went into operation on Saturday, despite U.N. demands that Tehran stop the activity because it can be used to develop a nuclear bomb.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the plant, which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

The announcement comes days before Thursday’s U.N. deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment - which also can be used to create nuclear weapons - or face economic and political sanctions. Tehran has called the U.N. Security Council resolution “illegal” and said it won’t stop enrichment as a precondition to negotiations.

Mohammed Saeedi, the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the heavy water plant is “one of the biggest nuclear projects” in the country, state-run television reported. He said the plant will be used in the pharmaceutical field and in diagnosing cancer.

President Ahmadinejad has this to say…

“No one can deprive a nation of its rights based on its  capabilities,” Ahmadinejad said in his speech to inaugurate the  heavy water project.

“Iran is not a threat to anybody, not even to the Zionist  regime,” Ahmadinejad said, using Iran’s term for its arch-enemy  Israel, which the Islamic Republic does not recognize.

Same Article:

Iran’s deputy parliament speaker, Mohammad Reza Bahonar,  warned the West in comments published by Iran’s Sharq newspaper  on Saturday that putting pressure on the country could prompt  public calls for Iran to pursue a weapons program.

“Be afraid of the day that the Iranian nation comes into  the streets and stages demonstrations to ask the government to  produce nuclear weapons to combat the threats,” he said.