The Arak IR-40 heavy water reactor in Iran. Photo: Nanking2012 / WikiCommons.

JNS.org – Iran has unveiled a new generation of nuclear centrifuges that are 15 times more powerful than the country’s current ones, Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Monday.

“We unveiled a new generation of centrifuges that surprised the Westerners,” Salehi said, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB Newsreported. “This new machine is 15 times more powerful than the previous generation.”

Salehi said the new centrifuges do not violate the interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers. According to AFP, the Iran nuclear program has about 19,000 centrifuges, 10,000 of which are from the first generation and about 1,000 from a second generation. It is not clear when the latest generation will go into service.

Iran will not give up its right to enrich uranium, said Salehi.

“We have met our needs to the 20-percent-enriched fuel (for the Tehran research reactor and medical purposes) and we have enough fuel, but we have not lost our right to produce 20 percent fuel,” he said, Fars News Agency reported.

Nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers are expected to resume in mid-February.