ElBaradei disputes Tehran’s claim of 3,000 centrifuges

The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that Iran was operating only several hundred centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, despite its claims to have activated 3,000.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran’s nuclear program was a concern but discounted its claims of a major advance in uranium enrichment, a process the U.N. demands Iran suspend or face increasing sanctions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that the Natanz facility had begun “industrial-scale” production of nuclear fuel.

The country’s top nuclear negotiator said workers had begun injecting uranium gas into a new array of 3,000 centrifuges, many more than the 328 centrifuges known to be operating at Natanz.

Experts say that 3,000 centrifuges would be enough in theory to develop a nuclear warhead in about a year, but they doubt Iran has that many devices successfully running.

ElBaradei said, “Iran is still just at the beginning stages in setting up its Natanz enrichment facility.”

Iran ultimately aims to operate more than 50,000 of the devices at the site.

“The talk of building a facility with 50,000 centrifuges is just at the beginning, and it is only in the hundreds,” ElBaradei told reporters in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

Diplomats in Vienna familiar with IAEA efforts said Iran was running only about 650 centrifuges in series, and that the machines were running empty.