"TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Tuesday.
The U.S. immediately criticized the announcement as an example of Iran's continued defiance of international demands that it suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a weapon.
Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating at its underground nuclear facility in Natanz, and the U.N. has passed three sets of sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Tehran insists its nuclear program is focused on the peaceful production of energy, not the development of weapons as claimed by the U.S. and many of its allies.
State television also quoted Ahmadinejad as saying that "we have reached new achievements" in Natanz that he would announce later Tuesday.
The president's trip was scheduled to coincide with Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, marking the second anniversary of Iran's first enrichment of uranium."
Iran's construction of these new centrifuges shows the country's ongoing defiance towards U.N. sanctions. Repeated by Iran many times before, uranium enrichment is for peaceful means, not to build nuclear weapons.
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