Iran able to mass produce atom centrifuges-report

TEHRAN, May 2 (Reuters) Iran underlined its determination today to press ahead with sensitive nuclear work despite Western opposition, with a senior official saying it was capable of mass producing the machines used for enriching uranium.

Iran is embroiled in a deepening standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions. Major powers suspect it is seeking to build bombs but Tehran says it only wants to generate electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

The Islamic Republic last month said it could now make nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, a move that would take it closer to developing atomic weapons if it wanted to, but Western experts expressed doubt about the announcement.

Centrifuges, tubular devices that are tricky to calibrate, spin at supersonic speed to refine fuel for power plants or, if it is enriched to high levels, nuclear explosives.

''One day Iran had problems to produce one centrifuge but right now we have obtained the technology for mass production of centrifuges,'' Ali Akbar Velayati, international affairs adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the Jomohouri Eslami newspaper in an interview.

Iranian officials have previously said Iran was able to domestically make equipment needed for nuclear fuel production.

But this was believed to be the first time a senior aide of Khamenei, who has the final say on nuclear and other policies, confirmed it could make centrifuges on a large scale.

Velayati's comments came as six world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- were due to meet in London to review Tehran's nuclear programme.

Iran has repeatedly said it would not give up its nuclear programme despite two sets of United Nations sanctions since December, and Velayati indicated that if it did so major powers would just make other demands on Tehran.

''Maybe tomorrow they will have problems with the numbers of our army or Revolutionary Guards,'' he said.

Iran aims to have 3,000 centrifuges running at its main enrichment plant, Natanz, by the end of this month. That could be enough to refine uranium for one bomb within a year if they operate for long periods.

It said in April it had launched more than 1,300 centrifuges and begun feeding them with uranium for enrichment, but diplomats said it was ''test-scale'' and nowhere near the industrial capacity Iran's president had talked about.

Senior officials from the six powers at the London meeting were expected to discuss last week's talks between European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey.

While nothing definitive resulted from those talks, which will reconvene this month, the overall tone was that they had been constructive.

REUTERS ABM KP1530