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TEHRAN-Iran has 4,000 working nuclear centrifuges, an official said in remarks published on Friday, in line with a number verified by the U.N. atomic watchdog but lower than a figure cited by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Iran says it is installing centrifuges to enrich uranium so it can make fuel for nuclear power plants. But the West accuses Tehran of seeking to master technology so it can enrich uranium to much higher levels for use in nuclear warheads. Ahmadinejad said last month Iran had more than 5,000 centrifuges running. But a diplomat close to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which routinely checks Iranian nuclear sites, said soon afterward Ahmadinejad appeared to have overstated the number by at least 1,000."There are currently close to 4,000 centrifuges active at Natanz enrichment facility... Another 3,000 centrifuges are being installed," Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh Attar told state television, the official IRNA news agency reported.The last IAEA report on Iran, issued in late May, said Iran was in the processing of setting up 3,000 more centrifuges beyond 3,000 already operating.Vienna diplomats said recently Iran's expansion of enrichment seemed to be relatively slow and the operation remained well short of "industrial" capacity producing enough fuel to run power stations or make bombs, if Iran so chose.World powers have offered Iran a package of trade, nuclear and other incentives to halt its sensitive nuclear work, but Tehran has repeatedly said it will not do so.The United States and its Western allies are pushing for more U.N. sanctions, after three sets were imposed since 2006.As in the days of Noah....
