President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed on Sunday that Iran was installing a new set of centrifuges every week at its Natanz nuclear plant, Fars news agency reported. In a meeting with students in Tehran, Ahmadinejad further said more than 3,000 centrifuges had already been installed at Natanz in central Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in its latest report that Iran had fewer than 2,000 centrifuges working in Natanz and around 650 were installed but were not yet operating. The IAEA data was in line with an announcement last May by Abdol- Reza Rahmani-Fazli, deputy of Iran's National Security Council, that 1,600 of a planned 3,000 centrifuges - used to spin out uranium sufficiently enriched to fuel an energy plant - were working at Natanz. According to the Iranian president, the final aim would be to install 50,000 centrifuges within two to four years to create the Islamic state's own nuclear fuel cycle.
