The
head of the U.N. nuclear agency expressed growing concern on Monday about
investigating an Iranian site suspected of links to nuclear weapons
development, saying there are indications of new activity there.
International
Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano did not specify whether he believed the
activity was linked to suspected new weapons experiments or attempts to clean
up previous alleged work. But he said the suspicions of "activities ...
ongoing at the Parchin site" in Iran means "going there sooner is
better than later" for IAEA inspectors seeking to probe suspicions that
Iran has been — or is — working secretly to develop nuclear arms.
Inspecting
Parchin was a key request made by senior IAEA teams that visited Tehran in
January and February. Iran rebuffed those overtures, as well as attempts by the
IAEA to question officials and secure other information linked to the
allegations of secret weapons work.
Herman
Nackaerts, a senior Amano deputy, told IAEA board members of such suspicions
last week, referring to satellite images as his source, but the fact that
Monday's comments came from the head of the agency added extra weight to the
concerns.
Iran
denies any intention of possessing nuclear weapons and says all of its atomic
activities are peaceful, but the agency says it has intelligence-based
suspicions that may not be the case based on thousands of pages of
documentation.
Parchin
is a key element. The agency says it may have been used to experiment with
precision detonations normally used to set off a nuclear charge. "We have
our credible information that indicates that Iran engaged in activities
relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices," Amano told
reporters outside of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting in Vienna, describing his
sources as "old information and new information."
The
conference opened as fears grow that Israel's air force may soon strike Iran in
an attempt to destroy its nuclear facilities. President Barack Obama met with
Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Monday and told the Israeli prime minister
that the United States "will always have Israel's back," but that
diplomacy is the best way to resolve the crisis over potential Iranian nuclear
weapons.
The
U.S. and its Western allies went into Monday's IAEA meeting hoping to persuade
Russia and China to back a resolution critical of Iran's refusal to heed IAEA
and U.N. Security Council demands that it banish such concerns by opting for
full nuclear transparency.
Moscow
and Beijing traditionally act as brakes on Western attempts to tighten the
sanctions vise on Iran, and a diplomat — who asked for anonymity because his
information was privileged — told The Associated Press that the focus is on
finding language they could agree with, without watering down the message to
the point that it becomes meaningless.
However,
another diplomat later said such attempts had been abandoned because the
language rift was too great to bridge. Any resolution passed by the IAEA board
automatically goes to the U.N. Security Council and could be used as a platform
for additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic, which already is the focus of
four sets of U.N. sanctions meant primarily to pressure it to give up
enrichment.
The
U.S., the European Union and others have additionally slapped Tehran recently
with financial and economic penalties meant to hurt its banking system and oil
export industry. Inside Monday's closed meeting, Amano summarized his worries:
Tehran's rebuff of two recent attempts to probe the weapons program suspicions
and a sharp, recent increase in uranium enrichment, which Iran says it needs
for nuclear energy, but which can also produce fissile weapons material.
Recent
moves to boost higher-enriched enrichment at Fordo, an underground facility
that may be able to withstand aerial attack, are of particular concern.
Referring to his most recent report on Iran circulated late last month, Amano
noted that Tehran had tripled higher monthly enrichment to 20 percent at Fordo
over the past four months, as well as significantly expanding lower-level
enrichment at another facility.
Both
lower enriched uranium below 5 percent and 20 percent enriched material can be
processed further to 90 percent — the level used to arm nuclear warheads. But
20-percent enrichment is of particular concern because it can be turned into
weapons-grade material much more quickly and easily that lower-enriched
uranium.
"The
agency continues to have serious concerns regarding possible military
dimensions to Iran's nuclear program," he said, in comments made available
to reporters. "As Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation ... the
agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared
nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all
nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."
Outside
the meeting, Ruediger Luedeking, Germany's chief IAEA delegate, told The
Associated Press that onus was on Iran to "actively disprove the
substantial doubt ... about the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear
program."
The
IAEA meeting comes less than two weeks after IAEA experts returned from Tehran
from their second failed attempt within a month to persuade Iran to end nearly
four years of stonewalling on what the agency says is growing
intelligence-based information that Iran has worked — and may still be working
— on components of a nuclear weapons program.
Iran
dismisses the suspicions as based on fabricated information provided by the
United States and Israel.
