The centrifuges available to Iran are not sufficient to launch industrial uranium enrichment, a senior Russian nuclear official said yesterday.

"Uranium enrichment in Iran is not arousing concerns in Russia.There is nothing unexpected in this. The availability of 164 centrifuges in Iran is a fact that has been known for a long time," Russian Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

"These centrifuges allow Iran to conduct laboratory uranium enrichment to a low level in insignificant amounts. The acquisition of highly enriched uranium is unfeasible today using this method," Kiriyenko said.

Earlier, senior Iranian official and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani told the Kuwait News Agency that Iran had operated the first unit of 164 centrifuges and successfully enriched uranium.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran would "join the world club of nuclear technology soon".

However, in order to produce own fuel at least for the initial loading of a nuclear reactor, "one needs to have not some hundred-and-a-half centrifuges, but thousands of times more," Viktor Mikhailov, ex-minister of the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy who leads the ministry's Institute for Strategic Stability, said on Wednesday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday confirmed a quadripartite meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue.

"Representatives of the European Troika -- France, Britain and Germany, the United States, Russia and China will convene in Moscow on April 18 to discuss the Iranian nuclear dossier," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said on Thursday.

The UN Security Council adopted a presidential statement on March 29 that urged Iran to fully restore the suspension of all activities related to uranium enrichment in 30 days.