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Iran 'installing new centrifuges' | Iran 'installing new centrifuges' |
(about 11 hours later) | |
Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its main nuclear site in Natanz, state media quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying. | Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its main nuclear site in Natanz, state media quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying. |
He made the comments during a visit to the site to mark national nuclear day. | |
Iran is already thought to have some 3,000 centrifuges - which are used to enrich uranium - at the Natanz plant. | Iran is already thought to have some 3,000 centrifuges - which are used to enrich uranium - at the Natanz plant. |
The US and Western allies, who accuse Iran of wanting to enrich uranium to build nuclear weapons, condemned the news but disagreed on how to respond. | |
Iran vehemently denies any ambitions to build nuclear weapons, saying it is solely pursuing civilian power generation and as such has not fallen foul of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). | |
Last month, the Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran but Tehran has continued to defy the UN Security Council's demand that it cease enrichment. | |
'Generous incentives' | |
"Today [Tuesday] we have started the installation of 6,000 new centrifuges ... I will announce more achievements tonight," the official Irna news agency quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying at Natanz, in central Iran. | |
Reacting to the news, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealed to Iran to accept a deal and halt enrichment. | |
"Iran faces continued isolation in the international community because it will not take a reasonable offer from the international community to have another way," she said in Washington. | |
"The six parties have put forward, I think, a very generous set of incentives should Iran agree to live up to the obligations that any state has when a Security Council resolution is passed." | |
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested sanctions on Iran could be "reinforced". | |
Russian rejection | |
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such moves were not "on the agenda". | |
"The [latest UN] resolution gives Iran 90 days to respond in detail and that has yet to expire. We have to wait for a response from Iran. I do not think that this response will please everyone," he said. | |
Instead, Mr Lavrov suggested a new package of economic, energy and security incentives to encourage Iran to halt uranium enrichment. He renewed warnings that the use of force against Iran would render any settlement impossible. | |
Iran's national nuclear day commemorates the April 2006 anniversary of its first production of uranium that was sufficiently enriched to make atomic fuel. | Iran's national nuclear day commemorates the April 2006 anniversary of its first production of uranium that was sufficiently enriched to make atomic fuel. |