Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that his country has already started uranium enrichment at an industrial scale months ago, local Fars news agency reported.

"Industrial enrichment started at the beginning of the (Iranian) year (in March) when I was in Natanz and it has continued since then," Ahmadinejad told Fars after he attended a parliament meeting to defend his nominees for the oil and industry ministries.

"Iran's nuclear activities are at an industrial scale, carried out under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," he added.

Earlier this month, the Iranian president announced during a visit to the northeastern province of Southern Khorassan that Iran has made 3,000 centrifuges operational.

The United States and some other Western countries fear Iran may try to develop atomic bombs under a civilian cover, however Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

The UN Security Council has already issued two sanction resolutions against Iran's nuclear program since last December, but both of them failed to persuade the Islamic Republic to give up uranium enrichment work.