BEIRUT AND ESFAHAN, IRAN — Iran announced fresh advances Thursday in its steady drive to master nuclear technology, trumpeting two new devices to enrich uranium and inaugurating a plant to produce fuel pellets for a heavy-water reactor.
State television broadcast a patriotic three-minute music video called "Fruits of Science" heralding technological achievements during the annual National Day of Nuclear Technology celebrations marking the date in 2006 when Iran produced its first batch of enriched uranium.
"We are witness to very important nuclear achievements," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian officials and foreign guests in Esfahan for the launch of the nuclear fuel production plant, which was broadcast on state television.
Iran's nuclear authorities "have announced that the various cycles of nuclear fuel management are in our grasp in a comprehensive and domestically produced way," Ahmadinejad said.
Also at the event, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the country now has "around 7,000" centrifuges installed at its Natanz facility, a significant jump from the 5,600 the International Atomic Energy Agency cited in a February report. Iranian officials also announced the introduction of two new types of centrifuges that enrich uranium faster than the current models.
"This shows Iran's unique progress in line with the most up-to-date technology in the world," Gholamreza Aghazadeh said.
The West suspects that Iran's program is meant to eventually produce weapons, but Tehran insists that it is meant to expand the country's energy supply. The United Nations Security Council has called on Iran to stop producing nuclear material with the potential for use in weapons.
Iran's buildup of nuclear technology infrastructure, without explicitly pursuing weapons, keeps its unnerved regional rivals and the West guessing about its capabilities and intentions, a strategy that some analysts say could serve as a deterrent to foreign military action.
But experts say Iran's plan could backfire if international inspectors accuse it of violating the Nonproliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory.
"If they're trying to do everything they're doing entirely legally, when they take steps that cross the boundary they're going to really undermine their own argument," said Peter Crail, an analyst at the Washington-based Arms Control Assn.
The Obama administration reacted coolly to the latest news.
