U.S. skeptical about Iranian nuclear advances

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - Washington is skeptical that Iran is installing 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium and testing an advanced centrifuge with greater capacity, a top U.S. diplomat said on Thursday.

Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, told reporters they should take "with a grain of salt" comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday.

Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, which can be used as fuel in power plants or, if highly refined, for nuclear weapons. The West fears Iran's objective is to make a bomb. Tehran says its program is for peaceful uses only.

"Ahmadinejad has a record of making bold political announcements not necessarily supported by technical facts," Schulte said, calling the speech more of a "political stunt".

"Iran has not yet mastered the capability to enrich uranium although they are obviously working very hard to do this," he told a news conference.

Iran has a number of centrifuges in operation but experts say it has not mastered the highly sophisticated process of producing uranium in the quantities needed to fuel a nuclear power plant or to build an atomic bomb.

Nevertheless, Schulte said the path Ahmadinejad was taking was of "enormous concern" to the United States and others.

"Clearly President Ahmadinejad and the leadership in Iran are disregarding the concerns of the international community and they are also violating now four resolutions of the (U.N.) Security Council...," he said.