U.N. watchdog denies Iran blocked nuclear site visit

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog denied on Friday a report that Iran had blocked its inspectors from visiting a nuclear facility where it is enriching uranium.

"There is no truth to media reports claiming that the IAEA was not able to get access to Natanz," said International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire.

"We have not been denied access at any time, including in the past few weeks. Normally we do not comment on such reports but this time we felt we had to clarify the matter," he said.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA also denied the reports.

Last year, Iran held up some inspection visits to Natanz, but access was eventually restored, diplomats familiar with IAEA operations said at the time.

Iran says it seeks only nuclear-generated electricity, not atomic weapons as some Western countries suspect.

IAEA inspectors visited the Natanz plant on April 15-16 and again about two weeks later and diplomats familiar with their findings said Iran now has more than 1,600 enrichment centrifuges, divided into 10 fuel-cycle networks, operational.

Iran has more than doubled the number of centrifuges in Natanz in the past two months and aims to have 3,000 running by end of May, enough to make one atom bomb a year should it want.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said he understood there had been one unannounced inspection visit to Natanz since agency officials struck a deal with Iran for such visits in late March.

Iran granted the unannounced visits in exchange for the IAEA setting aside its longstanding demand to install surveillance cameras inside the underground centrifuge hall.

There are cameras only outside the hall now monitoring nuclear materials taken in and taken out. The IAEA will seek to put cameras inside the hall once Iran is ready to produce enriched uranium in significant quantities, diplomats have said.

A diplomatic source said many of the centrifuges were being fed with uranium gas for enrichment but run very slowly rather than at optimum supersonic speed for fear they would crash, underscoring quality-control problems hampering the program.

"They are more interested in quantity of activity than quality at this point in time because they feel the more they are doing, the more they can drive home to the world that the program is irreversible," he told Reuters.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator made clear again on Friday Tehran would not bow to pressure and suspend uranium enrichment, saying Western powers should not "waste their time".

"They should forget this issue that by bullying they can change Iran's nuclear case," Ali Larijani, who is expected to meet EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana later in May after their talks in Turkey last month, told state television.

"I believe we have to some extent started progressive talks with Solana," he said. "If the leaders of the world revise their opinion we can solve the current nuclear issue in peace."

(Additional reporting by Tehran bureau)