Iran says has not used advanced uranium centrifuges

TEHRAN, April 23 (Reuters) Iran has not used advanced P-2 centrifuges, which would enable it to enrich uranium faster than the current P-1 centrifuges it currently operates, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

''So far, we have never used P-2 centrifuges, and what we have used is P-1 machines. We have informed the agency (the International Atomic Energy Agency) about that,'' ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters at a weekly news conference.

Iran announced this month that it had enriched uranium for the first time, in defiance of U.N. calls for it to halt work which Western nations say is being used to develop atomic bombs.

Iran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian and will press on with enrichment. It has raised further worries in the West by saying it was pressing ahead with a research and development programme on advanced P-2 centrifuges.

REUTERS MP PM1345