Iran has 18,000 uranium centrifuges, says outgoing nuclear chief
Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani says Iran has
17,000 older ‘first-generation’ IR-1 centrifuges; 1,000 new, more
advanced centrifuges ready to start operations
Dubai: Iran has installed 18,000
uranium-enrichment centrifuges, the country’s outgoing nuclear chief was
quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday.
The US and its Western allies are pressing Iran to curb
its uranium enrichment programme, which they suspect is aimed at
developing a nuclear weapons capability, but Iran refuses and insists
its nuclear activity is for purely peaceful purposes.
New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani,
a former nuclear negotiator who oversaw a previous deal to suspend
Iran’s uranium enrichment, has welcomed new talks with world powers over
the programme but has insisted on Iran’s right to enrich uranium.
Iran has 17,000 older “first-generation” IR-1
centrifuges, of which 10,000 are operating and 7,000 are ready to start
operations, the ISNA news agency quoted Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, outgoing head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), as saying.
A May report from the UN nuclear watchdog indicated that
Iran had by then installed roughly 16,600 IR-1 machines in two separate
facilities.
Abbasi-Davani also said there were 1,000 new, more
advanced centrifuges ready to start operations, in a reference to IR-2m
centrifuges, which once operational would allow Iran to enrich uranium
several times faster than the IR-1 machine.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its last
report in May said Iran had installed a total of 689 such centrifuges
and empty centrifuge casings.
Rouhani on Friday appointed Ali Akbar Salehi,
Iran’s previous foreign minister, to take over the AEOI. Salehi, who
once headed the agency, is seen as a pragmatist, as opposed to the more
hardline Abbasi-Davani.
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