Iran Announces Installation of Additional Centrifuges

NTI - Global Security Network: Iran said Wednesday that it was operating 5,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges in a program the United States and other Western powers fear is geared toward nuclear weapons development, Reuters reported (see GSN, Nov. 26). The figure given by Iranian Atomic Energy Organization chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh significantly exceeds a tally of 3,800 running centrifuges that the International Atomic Energy Agency reported from a Nov. 7 visit to Iran's Natanz enrichment facility. Iran was installing another 2,200 centrifuges and anticipated adding 3,000 of the machines beginning in early 2009, according to a U.N. nuclear watchdog report.

"Now we have 5,000 running centrifuges," Iranian state media quoted Aghazadeh as saying. It remained uncertain whether all of the centrifuges were actively processing uranium gas, work that typically begins only after Iran tests the machines for reliability, Reuters reported. Iran insists that its uranium enrichment program is aimed strictly at civilian energy development, and Tehran has rebuffed international calls to halt the effort. "Suspension of nuclear enrichment is not in our vocabulary," Aghazadeh said. "In the next five years we should install at least 50,000 machines." According to one high-level diplomat, "Iran could well have 6,000 centrifuges on line by the end of the year. If you add the number of machines that were in the process of installation as of Nov. 7, you would come close to the number they claim are working today" (Hafezi/Dahl, Reuters I, Nov. 26). . . .

France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Thursday criticized Iran for scaling back its cooperation with the IAEA investigation since September, Reuters reported. "(This has been) two months of utter disrespect for the agency and members of this board," the countries said in a statement to the agency's 35-nation governing board, which met last week. The countries expressed strong concern about Iran's refusal to give the agency design specifications for a nuclear power station planned at Darkhovin and a research reactor already being built. Iran's nuclear program "continues and intensifies a threat to the stability of a troubled region," the statement added (Sylvia Westall, Reuters II, Nov. 28). . . . [Full Story]

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