Mottaki's comes a day after President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran is now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an industrial scale through enrichment.
The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, today said Tehran is seeking to install 50,000 centrifuges at a plant in central Iran. He suggested that 3,000 centrifuges had already been installed at the plant in Natanz.
Russia today voiced skepticism about Iran's April 9 announcement. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that Russia is unaware of any technological breakthroughs that would allow Iran to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.
The statement said Moscow had yet to receive confirmation of Tehran's claim.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also spoke with journalists in Moscow today.
"We are clarifying the situation, including in our contacts with experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency who are still working in Iran, as you know," Lavrov said. "So far we've had no confirmation that enrichment has in fact started at the new cascades."
The United States and European Union have renewed their calls for Iran to suspend uranium-enrichment activities.
Two sets of UN sanctions have been imposed on Iran over its refusal to halt such work. Western nations suspect Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing atomic weapons. Tehran denies this.
(compiled from agency reports)
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