PARIS (Reuters) – Tehran has slowed its expansion of a key nuclear facility, the UN nuclear watchdog said Tuesday.

Speaking in Paris, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran had not been installing a significant number of centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium, as quickly as it could have been.
“They haven’t really been adding centrifuges, which is a good thing,” ElBaradei said at a think-tank in Paris, adding: “Our assessment is that it’s a political decision.”
The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend its enrichment program.
Iran, as a signatory to the NPT, has legal right to master atomic technology to meet its growing electricity needs.
In its last report on Iran in November, the IAEA said Tehran planned to start installing another 3,000 centrifuges early this year, adding to 3,800 already enriching uranium and another 2,200 being gradually introduced.
ElBaradei’s comments, made two days before his next report on Iran is due to be issued, suggested that progress on installing more centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz enrichment site was much slower than had been expected.
“Natanz is supposed to have 50,000 centrifuges. Right now they have 5,000,” he said, adding that Iran had not added a “significant” number of centrifuges.