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US accuses Iran of deceit
03/06/2004 06:54 - (SA)
Vienna - The United States accused Iran on Wednesday of using "deceit and denial" to secretly develop nuclear weapons after damning new revelations from the UN nuclear watchdog on the Islamic republic's atomic energy programme.
US ambassador to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Kenneth Brill told reporters that Iran's refusal to fully co-operate with the agency "fits a long-term pattern of denial and deception that can only be designed to mask Iran's military nuclear programme."
He was commenting after an IAEA report released on Tuesday charged that its inspectors had found more traces in Iran of highly enriched uranium that could be bomb-grade.
The IAEA also reported that Iran has admitted to importing parts for sophisticated P-2 centrifuges for enriching uranium, going back on claims that it had made the parts domestically.
"Almost two years after the IAEA became aware of Iran's covert nuclear programme, and fully one year after the discovery of Iran's attempts to conceal their work at the Kalaye Electric Company (in Tehran), delayed access, inconsistent stories and unanswered questions continue to be the hallmark of Iranian co-operation with the agency," Brill said.
What are they hiding?
"Even a disinterested observer must now ask, what is it that the Iranians are so intent on hiding," Brill said.
"The more the IAEA digs, the more problems it finds," he said.
The IAEA report is to be submitted to the agency's 35-nation board of governors on June 14.
The United States has called for the IAEA, which has been investigating the Iranian programme since February 2003 after being alerted to it in August 2002, to refer the Islamic republic to the UN Security Council for possible international sanctions.
In Tehran, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani said on Wednesday that Iran had "no secret nuclear activities."
Rowhani said: "Iran's nuclear dossier is on the way to being sorted out and there is nothing very important that is pending."
But Brill said: "Iran is still stalling, providing last-minute declarations and contradicting earlier definitive statements. The IAEA continues to find new, incriminating evidence of undeclared activity.
"Iran is still not answering the most important questions when confronted with evidence," Brill said.
"The question is how long the (IAEA) board of governors and the international community will tolerate this," he said.
"Iran can clear up these serious questions quickly, if it is willing to confess its clandestine nuclear weapons programme and activities, like Libya," Brill said, referring to Tripoli's disarming its mass destruction programmes in full co-operation with the IAEA.
- AFP
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