AFP: The United States said Friday that Iran's unveiling of a new centrifuge for enriched uranium suggests Tehran "has nefarious intentions" in its nuclear program. WASHINGTON, Iran (AFP) — The United States said Friday that Iran's unveiling of a new centrifuge for enriched uranium suggests Tehran "has nefarious intentions" in its nuclear program.
"If Iran wants the international community to believe what it says, that it has peaceful intentions with respect to its nuclear program, then Iran has no need for a third generation, or faster centrifuge," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
Crowley said that based on Iran's comments as it unveiled the new centrifuge "we have to conclude that Iran has nefarious intentions in its nuclear program."
He added, "That's expressly why we continue to work within the international community on additional measures, sanctions to show Iran that there's a consequence for failure to meet its obligations."
The US comments came as Iran unveiled a new faster centrifuge for enriching uranium, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned major powers mulling fresh UN sanctions that it would not give in to threats.
Atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran had successfully tested the new centrifuges which are capable of enriching uranium six times faster than its existing ones at a plant in Natanz, south of Tehran.
Uranium enrichment is the sensitive process that lies at the heart of Western concerns about Iran's nuclear program. The process can produce the fuel for nuclear reactors but in highly extended form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.
