Two U.N. nuclear inspectors began a trip to Iran on Tuesday to visit a uranium enrichment facility where Tehran announced it had begun industrial atomic work in defiance of U.N. demands to stop.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at the Natanz site in central Iran on Monday that scientists had started to make nuclear fuel on an industrial-scale, expanding work that has already prompted two U.N. sanctions resolutions.
Western nations fear Iran may divert its atomic work towards a covert military program to build bombs. Iran denies this and says it wants reactor fuel only to generate electricity.
Russia said it had no evidence Iran had made any technological breakthroughs to allow it to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.
The semi-official Fars news agency said the IAEA inspectors would stay in Iran for one week. An Iranian official confirmed the inspectors' arrival to Reuters and said they were on a routine visit.
Inspectors from the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), routinely visit Natanz and other declared nuclear sites but Tehran halted more intrusive snap checks last year when its case was sent to the U.N. Security Council.
Iranian officials said on Monday Iran had started injecting gas into a batch of 3,000 atomic centrifuges being installed at Natanz. They gave no figures for the number of machines set up and running, saying U.N. inspectors would confirm numbers.
The inspectors' report, likely to emerge after their visit ends, could provide the first independent confirmation about Iran's declared progress which Russia questioned on Tuesday.
"We are not aware of any technological breakthroughs in the Iranian nuclear program recently which would change the nature of work on enrichment being carried out in the country," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"We are clarifying the situation, including in contact with experts from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"For now we do not have confirmation that actual enrichment has begun on the new centrifuges."
'SUPERIOR POSITION'
Analysts say Iran has made grand claims in the past about its achievements to strengthen its bargaining hand with the West but has glossed over technical glitches. Iranian officials said on Tuesday the West should take account of Iran's progress.
"Nuclear technology naturally gives power to a country," Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
"Our situation before enriching uranium was different. It changed at the stage of pilot (work) and then at the industrial stage, which we have obtained, we have a superior position."
Until now, Iran has declared it was running about 350 experimental centrifuges and has enriched tiny quantities of uranium. Diplomats say those experimental machines have been plagued with technical problems despite Tehran's denials.
The United States has said it is "very concerned" about the Iran's announcement it had expanded enrichment activity. Washington insists it will not negotiate unless Iran halts the work, a precondition Tehran has repeatedly rejected.
"We have passed the stage of setting conditions for talks ... We believe that other parties should move forward based on new realities," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference with a visiting Afghan official on Tuesday.
The U.N. Security Council has passed two sanctions resolutions since December for what it regards as Iran's defiance.
Tehran has dismissed the pressure and warned it could review its membership of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if pushed. Analysts say withdrawing from the NPT would damage Iran's assertion that its aims were purely peaceful.
(Reuters, 10/04/2007)