Iran puts brakes on nuclear expansion under Rouhani, IAEA report shows

Credit: Reuters/Adrees Latif

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani takes questions from journalists during a news conference in New York September 27, 2013.

The quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also showed that Iran's stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium - closely watched by the West and Israel - had risen by about 5 percent to 196 kg since August.

But it remained below the roughly 250 kg needed for a bomb if refined further. Iran denies Western and Israeli accusations that it is seeking nuclear weapons capability, saying it is enriching uranium only for peaceful energy.

The quarterly IAEA report - scrutinized by Western governments - was the first that included developments only since Rouhani took office on August 3, prompting a diplomatic opening during which Iran and six world powers have made progress towards ending a standoff over its nuclear activity.

The IAEA said Iran had installed only four first-generation centrifuges - machines used to refine uranium - at its Natanz plant since August, making a total of 15,240. In the previous three-month period, May-August, it installed more than 1,800. Not all of the installed centrifuges are operating.

Rouhani, a pragmatist, succeeded bellicose hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August, promising to try to settle the decade-old nuclear dispute and secure an easing of sanctions that have severely damaged Iran's oil-dependent economy.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Heinrich)