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Iran's president has confirmed that a cyberbug compromised the operation of some of the centrifuges used in its uranium enrichment programme.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the problems had been created by enemies of Iran, but had had only a limited effect.

Iran has repeatedly denied that the complex computer worm Stuxnet had affected its nuclear programme.

The UN said last week that Iran had temporarily halted most of its uranium enrichment work earlier this month.

The West fears Iran's ultimate goal is to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use.

"They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," Mr Ahmadinejad told a news conference.

"Our specialists stopped that and they will not be able to do it again," he added without elaborating on the software thought to have been used.