Iran processed plutonium in '98
15/06/2005 21:08  - (SA)  

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Vienna - Iran has admitted to processing plutonium, a potential material for atomic bombs, more recently than it originally reported, according to the draft of a report to be made to the UN nuclear agency and obtained by AFP on Wednesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency "has been pursuing with Iran the dates of its plutonium separation experiments" and Iran has admitted to purifying plutonium in 1998, the text said.

This was a revision of Iran's previous statement "that the experiments were completed in 1993", according to the draft for a speech to be delivered to the IAEA's board of governors on Thursday by deputy director for safeguards Pierre Goldschmidt.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said the agency therefore "wants to know whether Iran is still processing plutonium".

"If they lied, then the IAEA knows this has implications.

"The agency wants to know they're telling the truth and not making a firecracker," that is, a nuclear bomb, the diplomat said.

The text outlines areas in which the IAEA is still trying to pin down Iran's nuclear activities in an investigation that began in February 2003.

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