Iran 'evading' UN on nukes

2005-03-02 15:21

Vienna - Iran is refusing to co-operate in key areas with United Nations experts investigating possible atomic weapons work, including blocking a follow-up visit to a military facility where Washington charges Tehran is simulating testing of nuclear weapons, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency said on Tuesday.

Iran refused to let UN nuclear inspectors follow up on a first visit to the Parchin military camp, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

The United States expressed concern over the refusal but said it is not surprised.

"This adds to our concern that Iran is trying to hide something ... Iran has consistently, I think, resisted disclosing its nuclear activity," a State Department official said.

Refused to answer questions

Iran has also refused to answer IAEA questions about the Lavizan site in Tehran where there was suspicion of nuclear activities, Pierre Goldschmidt, the agency's deputy director general for safeguards, told a meeting in Vienna of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors.

In addition, Iran is pressing ahead with work on a heavy-water reactor that can make weapons-grade plutonium, despite an IAEA resolution last September asking the Islamic Republic to refrain from this "as a further confidence-building measure."

And "Iran had failed to report in a timely manner" about tunnels it is building at a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan where nuclear material or equipment can be stored, Goldschmidt said, according to a copy of comments made available to reporters.

IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei had said on Monday that Iran must do more to assist IAEA inspections and that the inquest into whether Tehran is secretly developing nuclear weapons will still take some time to complete.

This comes as Iran said it would not yield on its right and intentions to make nuclear fuel in its talks with Europeans on getting Tehran to guarantee it is not seeking atomic weapons.

"Fuel production is something we intend to do," said Cyrus Nasseri, who is heading the Iranian delegation at the IAEA meeting.

He said giving up uranium enrichment "is not on the table and it will not be on the table and it should not be on the table."

Britain, France and Germany insist however that Tehran permanently abandon its capacity to produce enriched uranium - which can be directed to both civil and military uses - in return for a package of incentives.

The United States charges that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons programme and wants the IAEA to bring Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

But ElBaradei says that while Iran hid sensitive nuclear activity for almost two decades, "the jury is still out" on whether Tehran is trying to develop atomic weapons.

- AFP