By Adrian Croft
LONDON (Reuters) - Washington is sceptical that Iran isinstalling 6,000 new centrifuges to enrich uranium and testingan advanced centrifuge with greater capacity, a top U.S.diplomat said on Thursday.
Gregory Schulte, U.S. ambassador to the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, toldreporters they should take "with a grain of salt" comments byIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, which can be usedas fuel in power plants or, if highly refined, for nuclearweapons. The West fears Iran's objective is to make a bomb.Tehran says its programme is for peaceful uses only.
"Ahmadinejad has a record of making bold politicalannouncements 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 uraniumalthough they are obviously working very hard to do this," hetold a news conference.
Iran has a number of centrifuges in operation but expertssay it has not mastered the highly sophisticated process ofproducing uranium in the quantities needed to fuel a nuclearpower plant or to build an atomic bomb.
Nevertheless, Schulte said the path Ahmadinejad was takingwas of "enormous concern" to the United States and others.
"Clearly President Ahmadinejad and the leadership in Iranare disregarding the concerns of the international communityand they are also violating now four resolutions of the (U.N.)Security Council...," he said.
The Security Council has imposed three rounds of limitedsanctions since 2006 on Iran for refusing to stop enrichinguranium. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, says itwants nuclear power to generate electricity to meet highdemand.
MILITARY OPTION
While urging Iran to negotiate, Schulte said Washingtonkept open the "military option" to halt Iran's nuclearprogramme.
"I think the president (George W. Bush) is very careful notto take options off the table but ... our goal is to get adiplomatic solution," he said. The military option was "not thenext option, I can say that for sure".
"Sometimes I've worried that perhaps the only person in theworld who would like a military option could be that crazy guyPresident Ahmadinejad. He seems to revel in isolation, he seemsto revel in defiance," he said.
The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council andGermany will meet on April 16 in Shanghai and are expected todiscuss whether to sweeten incentives they offered to Iran in2006 to curb its nuclear programme.
Schulte said the offer was "pretty darn generous". "It's abig offer ... and it's an offer, so it's also available tonegotiate," he said. "Rather than just negotiate amongourselves, we'd like Iran to seriously consider the offer."
Iran has ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work inexchange for trade and other incentives, and says it will onlynegotiate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
(Editing by David Clarke)
