An Iranian nuclear official has rejected a statement by a Tehran MP who said Iran had begun installing 3,000 new atomic centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

 

Hossein Simorgh, the head of public affairs at Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, said on Saturday that no such new devices had been fitted at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee, had earlier been quoted as saying Iran had started installing the centrifuges, used to make fuel for power stations or material for atomic bombs.

"No new centrifuge machine has been installed in Natanz facility," said Simorgh, responding to Boroujerdi's comments.

 

Diplomats have said inspectors from the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had concluded Iran was ready to start installing the centrifuges.

 

But they said timing the installation was likely to be a political decision. Moderate politicians in Iran, particularly critics of  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president, have been counselling caution and possibly even suspending enrichment, until now a step opposed by Iran.

 

 

Ahmadinejad has been blamed by critics for exacerbating the standoff with the West, although the final say in nuclear policy and other matters of state lies with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's highest authority.

 

The US has said it would be a "miscalculation" if Iran believed it could install the 3,000 centrifuges and still avoid another UN resolution or further pressure.

 

Iran already operates two experimental cascades of 164 centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds to purify uranium.