Iran Working on P-2 Centrifuges in Secret: Exiles

Friday, 28 April 2006

By MATTHEW BIGG, REUTERS BOI - Iran is working at secret military sites to develop a type of centrifuge machine that would enable it to make fuel for an atom bomb faster than current estimates, an exiled opposition group said on April 27. The exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has reported accurately on hidden Iranian nuclear sites in the past, said Tehran was researching "P-2" centrifuges in secret areas of its Natanz enrichment plant and the Ab-e Ali site near Tehran. The NCRI, which is on a U.S. list of terrorist groups, told a Paris news conference that both areas were linked to Iran’s defense ministry. Tehran says its nuclear program is only for generating electricity and has no links with the military. "They need months and not years to produce these (P-2) centrifuges," Mohammad Mohaddessin, a leading NCRI official, told Reuters in Paris where the group is based. He said testing P-2s had yet to begin and Tehran was attempting to conceal the work from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by carrying it out on military sites and frequently relocating the work. more