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Tehran: Iran gave conflicting signals on its disputed nuclear work on Saturday with the Islamic republic's atomic energy agency denying Tehran has started to install 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. “No new centrifuge machines have been installed in the Natanz facility,” Hossein Cimorgh, public relations director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency.
He was responding to an earlier statement by the head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security commission, Alaeddin Borujerdi, who said: “We are now installing the 3,000 centrifuges,” according to IRNA.
“God willing it will be finished in due time,” the senior MP said, without giving details on the work which Iran has said was scheduled to be completed by the end of March.
The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions to pressure Iran to stop uranium enrichment, which makes fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also the explosive core of atom bombs.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity but the United States claims that Iran is hiding work on developing atomic weapons.
The Security Council has said that if Iran freezes enrichment, then sanctions could be lifted.
But Iran says it is planning to increase its enrichment capacity by installing the 3,000 centrifuges, the machines which enrich uranium, at an underground facility in Natanz.
It is already running two pilot cascades of 164-centrifuges each at a pilot site above-ground in Natanz, but the larger project would raise the work to an industrial scale.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki earlier Saturday defended Iran's decision to bar 38 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), saying the move was within its legal rights.
“We decide about our cooperation considering the rights enshrined for members. Legally speaking, the decisions taken will not create any problems in our relations with the IAEA,” Mottaki told reporters.
Iran announced on Monday it was blocking 38 UN nuclear watchdog inspectors from entering the country in reprisal for the sanctions.
In December, parliament adopted a bill requiring the government to revise its cooperation with the IAEA in retaliation for the Security Council imposing limited sanctions on Iran.
Mottaki's comments came after a group of three IAEA inspectors arrived in Tehran on Friday for a week-long stay to visit Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites in central Iran, IRNA said.
Iran has also sent a letter to the agency asking for the removal of Christian Charlier, a Belgian official overseeing the IAEA's inspection of its nuclear programme, for alleged leaks to the press
