Azerbaijan, Baku Aug. 18 / Trend, N. Umid /
Iran has some 18,000 centrifuges, with 10,000 of them are currently operating, Iran's ex-head of Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoun Abbasi said, ISNA news agency reported.
He said that some 17,000 of centrifuges are of an older generation, IR-1 model, while about 1000 centrifuges belong to a domestic new model which are ready to be inaugurated.
He remarked that, about 7,000 of the first generation centrifuges are also ready to be inaugurated.
About 700 centrifuges in Natanz and Fordow sites are enriching uranium by 20 percent, while some 9000 centrifuges are working in Natanz with less than 5 percent uranium enrichment.
On June 2013, the International Atomic Energy Agency's director Yukiya Amano said Iran was violating the resolutions by increasing the number of centrifuges and volume of enriched uranium.
On Feb. 14, Iran announced that it has installed new, 5th generation centrifuges at Natanz nuclear research facility. Earlier, on Feb. 6 Iran announced that the country has successfully manufactured a tubular centrifuge, because of the imposed sanctions and restrictions.
Iran says it refines uranium to power a planned network of nuclear power stations. But the West fears that the material, if enriched much further to 90 percent, could be used for weapons. Iran says its nuclear program has only peaceful goals.