VIENNA: A UN nuclear report said on Thursday that Iran has resumed installing advanced enrichment centrifuges at its main nuclear plant at Natanz.
The report comes ahead of new talks between Iran and six world powers the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in Kazakhstan on February 26.
“On 6 February 2013, the Agency observed that Iran had started the installation of IR-2m centrifuges” at the Natanz plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said.
“This is the first time that centrifuges more advanced than the IR-1 have been installed” at the plant, it said.
If operated successfully, such machines could enable Iran to significantly speed up its accumulation of material that the West fears could be used to devise a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is refining uranium only for peaceful energy purposes.
The report also said Iran had increased to 167 kg (367 pounds) its stockpile of uranium refined to a fissile purity of 20 percent – a level it says it needs for conversion into reactor fuel. About 240-250 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium is needed for one atomic bomb if refined to a high degree.
Iran resumed converting higher-grade enriched uranium for fuel production in December and had since fed 28.3 kg of the material for this stated purpose, the report added.
It further said that “extensive” activities – an allusion to clean-up and renovations – at Iran’s Parchin military site would seriously undermine an IAEA investigation to determine whether explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons was done there.
