 Tehran, 2007 Sep 2, Al-Manar
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday Iran had put into operation over 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges at a nuclear plant.
"They (world powers) thought that by issuing any resolution Iran would back down," Ahmadinejad told Islamist students, referring to the two sanctions resolutions imposed against Tehran by the UN Security Council.
"But after each resolution the Iranian nation took another step along the path of nuclear development," he said. "Now it has put into operation more than 3,000 centrifuges and every week we install a new series."
The installation of 3,000 centrifuges has always been earmarked by Iran as the key medium-term goal of its nuclear program which
it had originally hoped to reach by March.
A UN atomic energy agency report obtained by AFP last week however said that Iran was still short of 3,000 centrifuges. It said that as of August 19, 2007 Iran had total of 1,968 centrifuges operating at its uranium enrichment plant in the central town of Natanz.
A total of 656 more centrifuges were in development, it said.
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