Ahmadinejad’s latest pronouncement on the issue of enriched uranium coincided with a call Sunday by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates for the international community to rally together to pressure Iran into abandoning its nuclear program.

Speaking to reporters during a weeklong European tour, Gates said that “if the international community will stand together and bring pressure” on Iran, “I believe there is still time for sanctions to work.” He declined to be specific about the type of sanctions he had in mind, but explained that the focus should be on putting pressure on the government in Tehran and not hurting the people.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union show broadcast Sunday that increasingly other nations were beginning to see Iran’s nuclear program as a threat. “The rest of the world has really begun to see Iran the way we see it,” she said.

In comments broadcast on state television, Ahmadinejad said: “God willing, 20 percent enrichment will start” to meet Iran’s needs. He did not give a date for the start of the enrichment process.

While the 20 percent threshold is substantially below the 90 percent plus needed to make fissile warhead material, any move by Iran to enrich to 20 percent would ring international alarm bells because it would bring Iran substantially closer to weapons capacity.

That is because enriching from 20 percent to weapons grade can be done much more quickly and with fewer equipment than from the low-enriched stockpile Iran now possesses.

Ahmadinejad was speaking at a meeting attended by the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi. Turning to Salehi, Ahmadinejad said: “Mr. Salehi, begin production of 20 percent” enriched uranium.

Iran and the West have been discussing a UN plan under which Iran would export its low-enriched uranium for enrichment abroad. The plan, which comes from the International Atomic Energy Agency, was first drawn up in early October in a meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers. It was refined later that month in Vienna talks between Iran, the US, Russia and France. The Vienna talks came up with a draft proposal that would take 70 percent of Iran’s low-enriched uranium to reduce its stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level, and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons.

That uranium would be returned about a year later as refined fuel rods, which can power reactors but cannot be readily turned into weapons-grade material.

In what was interpreted to be a possible shift of policy on a major issue, Ahmadinejad said last week he was ready to export his country’s low-enriched uranium for higher enrichment abroad, saying Iran had “no problem” with the plan. Sunday’s comments, however, appeared to justify the skepticism with which his Tuesday’s comments were met by world leaders.