Iran says 4,000 atomic centrifuges working

Iran is now operating 4,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant, a top official said on Friday, moving the country’s controversial nuclear programme...

Iran is now operating 4,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant, a top official said on Friday, moving the country’s controversial nuclear programme further out of the experimental stage onto an industrial level.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar told the official IRNA news agency that Iran was also preparing to install further centrifuges at the enrichment plant in Natanz, central Iran.

“Right now, nearly 4,000 centrifuges are operating at Natanz enrichment plant,” Attar said. “Currently, 3,000 other centrifuges are being installed.”

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Uranium is enriched into nuclear fuel by the centrifuges to power operate nuclear energy plants. The same process, however, can be used to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons. For this reason, the United States and its allies have been demanding a halt to Iran’s uranium enrichment.

A total of 3,000 centrifuges is the commonly accepted figure for a nuclear enrichment programme that is past the experimental stage. By reaching 4,000, the programme is moving into an industrial-scale programme that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

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