Global General

Iran says producing centrifuge parts "not secret"

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-04-10 10:08

TEHRAN - Iran's foreign minister on Saturday said that Iran is producing centrifuges and their parts and it is not a secret thing, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

Ali-Akbar Salehi refuted the Thursday claims by Iranian Paris- based dissident the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) that Iran is secretly producing centrifuge parts in a factory to the west of Tehran.

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On Thursday, a PMOI spokesman said in Washington that the Taba company, to the west of Tehran and near Karaj city, is busy producing bases for centrifuges.

Referring to these claims, Salehi said that "I am surprised. This is not a new discovery ... We are making centrifuges. And their pieces are being produced in different parts of the country, " said ISNA.

"There is such a factory in Karaj (to the west of Tehran) that the reporters have already visited and this is not something secret," Salehi was quoted as saying.

Iran's Atomic Chief Fereidoon Abbasi said Saturday that Iranian nuclear scientists have recently managed to design the third generation of centrifuges and tested them successfully, said ISNA.

Iran says that it is producing centrifuges for its "peaceful" uranium enrichment program.

West suspects that Iran's uranium enrichment may be produced for nuclear weapons which has been denied by Iranian officials.