Iran defies UN deadline

2007-02-22 18:44

Vienna - Iran has failed to comply with a UN security council demand to halt its uranium enrichment activities, according to a UN atomic agency report issued on Thursday.

"Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report being filed to the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors and the UN security council.

A security council resolution passed December 23, imposed limited sanctions on Iran to get it to freeze enrichment, which makes fuel for civilian reactors, but can also produce atom bomb material.

The IAEA report said Iran had failed to provide co-operation on crucial outstanding issues, such as handing over a 15-page document outlining the plan for making the core of atom bombs.

The IAEA is also asking for Iran to allow key monitoring cameras at a huge underground enrichment site being built in Natanz in the centre of the country.

Iran insists its programme is only to provide fuel for nuclear power plants, but the United States charges that Tehran is secretly developing atomic weapons.

US 'disappointed'

"We have recently received the report. We are disappointed that Iran has not complied with resolution 1737," said White House spokesperson Gordon Johndroe.

Iran is enriching uranium above-ground in a pilot plant in Natanz in the center of the country and has installed four 164-centrifuge cascade production lines at a massive site underground, the IAEA report said.

Iran is enriching uranium at a level "below 5% U-235" - far below the 90% refinement for the U-235 isotope needed to make weapons, it added.

The amount of feedstock uranium gas fed into the pilot plant was 66kg, a small amount useful only for research.

At the underground facility, heavily bunkered against possible air strikes, Iran is already operating two of the cascades, but "under vacuum" and not with the feedstock uranium gas needed for enrichment, the report said.

- AFP