IAEA to report on centrifuges at Iran's second enrichment plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to report soon on hundreds of new centrifuges at Iran's new uranium enrichment plant, a diplomat told dpa Sunday in Vienna - ahead of an IAEA team expected in Tehran this week to seek clarity on its disputed nuclear aims, DPA reported.

On the eve of that visit, Iran sent a confrontational message by announcing it was stopping oil exports to British and French companies.

The BBC, quoting an unnamed diplomat in Vienna - the IAEA's seat - had reported that Iran, which is suspected by some Western powers of building a nuclear weapon, may be poised to install thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the fortified Fordo plant near the city of Qom.

The facility was already fitted with the technical infrastructure required for the centrifuges, the broadcaster said.

Western diplomats told dpa, however, that Iran's nuclear engineers were nowhere near being able to actually operate thousands of new centrifuges at the site, even if there were plans to install them. The magnitude was more likely to be in the order of hundreds, one of them said on condition of anonymity.

"While these sort of advances are not welcome and a flagrant breach of UN Security Council resolutions, they are not as sensational as being portrayed in the press," he said.

The IAEA confirmed last month that uranium enrichment to a level of 20 per cent had started at Fordo, which has not officially been inaugurated.

A high-ranking inspection team from the IAEA was due to arrive in Tehran Monday, aiming to get officials there to start answering questions about alleged nuclear weapons projects.

On Sunday, an oil ministry spokesman said that "crude oil export to British and French companies have been stopped and we have found new customers instead."

Tehran had on several occasions warned to cut oil exports to those EU states involved in the oil sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned in an interview Sunday that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons would plunge the Middle East into "a new Cold War." Other nations in the region would want to develop nuclear weapons if Iran did, he told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi rejected Hague's remarks.

"This is only an effort to create an anti-Iran atmosphere in the media. This is part of their political agenda. We will however continue our course and use of peaceful nuclear technology without any doubt and with self-confidence.

"At the same time, we are also prepared for the worst scenario," he said.