But the announcement met with surprise and scepticism outside the country, although there can be little doubt about Iran's claim to be irreversibly on its way to becoming a nuclear power.

In Vienna, the seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency, diplomats expressed doubt that Iran had even installed the 3,000 centrifuges it said it had up and running.

Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani seemed to confirm that Iran introduced uranium hexafluoride gas in 3,000 centrifuges, but Iran provided no exact number of centrifuges, thereby increasing the confusion about the true extent of its programme.

"According to our information, Iran has six cascades with 164 centrifuges each installed at Natanz," a European diplomat said, which would bring the number of centrifuges to around 1,000. How many of those are actually operational is another question.

Diplomats downplayed Iran's claims as no groundbreaking news, but rather as a tactical political manoeuvre on part of Iran. No great leaps forward in Iran's nuclear programme were observed in the past months, one diplomat said.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia refused to be guided by "emotional political gestures, but by facts," expressing growing dissatisfaction with Iran's stance.

The results of the latest IAEA inspections, to be provided to the IAEA board members in its upcoming meeting starting on June 11, will bring some clarification.

Currently two IAEA inspectors are in Iran for routine inspections, IAEA officials said.

Iran is still a long way from real industrial enrichment capabilities, as around 50,000 centrifuges are necessary to operate an industrial-scale enrichment plant for fuel production.

But it keeps working towards that goal. And in pursuing enrichment, Iran keeps violating UN Security Council Resolution 1747, which asks Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities.

Uranium enriched to about 5 per cent is used for producing nuclear fuel, but if enriched 90 per cent or more it can be employed for building nuclear weapons. Up to now Iran only produced a few grams of low enriched uranium 235, the UN nuclear watchdog said.

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