Iran will continue enriching uranium “with intensity,” with the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating to increase substantially in the current year, the country’s nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday, November 27, Reuters reported. The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, signaled continued defiance by Iran in the face of international demands that Tehran halt enrichment to the higher 20 percent fissile purity level, close down its Fordow enrichment plant, and ship out its stockpile of the material. A U.N. report earlier this month said that the Islamic state has put in place the nearly 2,800 centrifuges that Fordow was designed for, and is poised to double the number of them operating to roughly 1,400 from 700 now.