Deputy Foreign Minister Ali-Reza Sheikh Attar said Thursday that there are almost 4,000 centrifuges operating in Natanz enrichment facilities. Sheikh-Attar told TV Channel One on the occasion of the Government Week (August 23-29) that additionally, 3,000 more centrifuges are in the stage of installation. The Iranian official raised the report with certainty on the ground that he along with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian ambassadors and envoys abroad and other diplomatic officials visited Natanz enrichment facilities on August 19.

Also on the UN Security Council's anti-Iran resolutions, Attar said in the interview that the sanctions are futile and ineffective. "Had westerners become certain that the resolutions would bring us down to our knees, they would have definitely intensified them (the sanctions). Contrary to the sanctions, Iran's industrial output has increased 10-fold." He added, "They do know that ultra-resolution actions will cost them more dearly."

As for the Iran-US ties, Attar said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad believes the US people can be an audience influenced by Iran. He touched on President Ahmadinejad's fourth year of presence in the UN General Assembly meeting and said when other officials address the UN General Assembly meeting the hall is empty but when President Ahmadinejad takes the podium the place gets overcrowded because the guests think the president might raise a new point. Besides addressing the UN General Assembly meeting, the president gives interviews to the media and meets people from various walks of life, especially the luminaries, said Attar, adding, "There are many requests for meeting with him."Mr Ahmadinejad's policies of winning audience have worked well.

"As for the US interests section in Tehran," Attar said, "it will be a wishful thinking if you think the US will abandon its past policies. We have received no note to that effect; however, as Mr Ahmadinejad says, if we receive any note, we will study it and make decisions in line with interests of the two countries." added the Iranian official.

Elsewhere in the interview, Attar called for revision of Europe's approach towards Iran and said despite sanctions, Germany's volume of trade with Iran has increased by 10 percent.