Ahmadinejad: Iran has 3,000 working centrifuges

Iran has achieved a landmark, with 3,000 centrifuges fully working in its controversial uranium enrichment program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Wednesday.

"We have now reached 3,000 machines," Ahmadinejad told thousands of Iranians in Birjand in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of international demands to halt the program believed to be masking the country's nuclear arms efforts.

Ahmadinejad has in the past claimed Iran succeeded in installing the 3,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Wednesday's claim was his first official statement that the plant is now fully operating the 3,000 centrifuges.

Centrifuges are used in enriching uranium, a process that can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or material for a warhead.

Visit to Bahrain?

Meanwhile, an embassy official said on Wednesday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Bahrain this month, , days after British newspapers quoted the kingdom's crown prince accusing Iran of building a nuclear bomb.

The Times and The Daily Telegraph newspapers on Friday quoted Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa as saying Iran was developing nuclear weapons, a view shared by the West but rarely expressed in public by Iran's Arab neighbors.

Iran denies the accusations, and says its nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes.

"Ahmadinejad is coming to Bahrain in November, but the date has not been finalized. He will discuss bilateral ties and regional issues of common interest," Iranian embassy spokesman Abulghasem Vafaei said, declining to give further details.

Bahrain, a US ally, is home to the US navy's fifth fleet, which has conducted several war-game exercises in waters close to Iran's coast.

Since the British newspaper articles were published, Iran's state news agency IRNA carried a report quoting Bahrain's foreign minister saying the prince's words were "distorted".