DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - IRAN / VIENNA:

Tehran 'defying UN at nuclear sites'

VIENNA: Iran was said to be moving into the final stages of setting up an industrial-level site to enrich uranium in defiance of UN demands as Washington yesterday denied it was planning a war with Tehran.

Diplomats at the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had by this week begun installation of 3,000 centrifuges, the machines which enrich uranium, in a huge underground bunker at its main nuclear facility in the central town of Natanz.

It had also this week stopped visiting UN inspectors from installing surveillance cameras in the bunker, the diplomats said.

They declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information.

In a swift denial of both charges, a high-ranking Iranian official in Tehran said "within the framework of Iran's commitment to the IAEA, there is no and there will be no restriction of inspectors' access".

"We have not begun installing new centrifuges," said the official, who asked not to be named.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in the Pentagon that Washington was pursuing a purely diplomatic path to try to halt Iran's nuclear programme. "The president has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've made clear ... we are not planning a war with Iran."

"What we are trying to do is, in Iraq, counter what the Iranians are doing to our soldiers, their involvement and activities, particularly these explosively-formed projectiles that are killing our troops," Gates said. "Our effort is aimed at uprooting the networks that are providing these EFPs."


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1) Tehran 'defying UN at nuclear sites'