Iran boasts of nuclear advances

A top Iranian nuclear official is boasting of advances in the country’s nuclear program.

In statements over recent days, Fereydoun Abbasi, who directs Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, has said that Bushehr, the country’s first commercial reactor, will be operational by May; that Iran plans to launch four to five research reactors in the next several years; and that the country has modernized centrifuges for enriching uranium.

Iran, reeling from the U.S.-led drive to toughen sanctions and from revelations that its centrifuge program was thrown into disarray by a computer virus, has sought to reassert its determination to advance a nuclear program it insists is peaceful.