Iran plans to install new centrifuges at Natanz facility: report

TEHRAN,Feb.2(MNA) – Iran has announced plans to install advanced uranium enrichment machines at the Natanz nuclear plant, in what would be a technological leap allowing it to significantly speed up uranium enrichment activity, Reuters reported on Thursday. In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran said it would introduce new centrifuges to its main enrichment plant near the central town of Natanz, according to an IAEA communication to member states seen by Reuters. The United States said on Thursday that installation of new Iranian centrifuges would be a “provocative step”. “This does not come as a surprise,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters in Washington. “It is certainly a provocation to increase any enrichment capacity at all,” a senior Western diplomat said. It was not clear how many of the upgraded centrifuges Iran aimed to put in place at Natanz, which is designed for tens of thousands of machines, but the wording of the IAEA’s note implied it could be up to roughly 3,000. Some Western analysts say UN sanctions have limited Iran’s access abroad to special steel and other components needed to produce sophisticated enrichment machines in larger numbers. Iran says it is able to manufacture them domestically. Iran’s announcement coincides with wrangling between Tehran and six world powers over when and where to meet next, delaying a resumption of talks aimed at reaching a negotiated deal. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who handles contacts with Iran on behalf of the big powers, said in Brussels on Thursday that she was “confident there will be a meeting soon,” without elaborating. The powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China - want Iran to scale back its enrichment to ensure it remains within peaceful dimensions and submit to stricter UN nuclear inspections. “We along with the other UN Security Council members have called upon the Iranians to freeze enrichment work during negotiations,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. Iran asserts a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and has repeatedly refused to halt the work, a stance underlined anew by its new centrifuge plans. Iran said it would use the new model at a unit in Natanz, where it is now refining uranium to a fissile concentration of up to five percent, according to the IAEA’s communication. The IAEA “received a letter from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) dated 23 January 2013 informing the Agency that ‘centrifuge machines type IR2m will be used in Unit A-22’ at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz,” it said. The IAEA said it had asked Iran, in a letter earlier this week, to provide technical and other information about the plans. A unit can house more than 3,000 centrifuges. About 10,400 IR-1 centrifuges were installed at Natanz as of late last year, an IAEA report said in November, but diplomats in the Austrian capital said they expected a jump in that figure in the next update from the UN agency due around February 22. The nuclear watchdog, whose mission is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in the world, regularly inspects Natanz and other declared Iranian nuclear sites.