BUSHEHR, Iran (Reuters) - Iran has not slowed down its nuclear work and plans to install 50,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium over the next five years, a senior Iranian nuclear official said on Wednesday.
"Currently we have 6,000 running centrifuges in Natanz and we will increase our activities to install more by the end of next (Iranian) year (to March 2010)," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said in southwest Iran, where a nuclear power plant is being built.
He did not say how many centrifuges would be in place by March 2010 but said Iran planned to install 50,000 centrifuges in the next five years.
"We have not changed our schedule in Natanz. We have neither slowed down or accelerated our activities there," he said, referring to Iran's enrichment facility in central Iran.
Iran said on Wednesday it had carried out successful tests at its Russian-built atomic power plant at Bushehr, taking it a step closer to its launch.
Bushehr is part of Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears also has military aims. Tehran is suspected by the United States and some European countries of pursuing a covert program to build nuclear weapons.
Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer, rejects such allegations and says its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more oil and gas.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Giles Elgood)
