The U.N. nuclear watchdog stated Friday that Tehran is defying a U.N. Security Council ban on uranium enrichment. At the same time, Iran has cooperated in other areas of an International Atomic Energy Agency probe, leading the agency to put to rest for now suspicions that several past experiments and activities were linked to a weapons program, said an agency report.
Specifically, the 11-page report suggested the agency was satisfied with answers provided by Iran on the origin of traces of enriched uranium in a military facility; on experiments with polonium, which can also be used in a weapons program; and on purchases on the nuclear black market. According to the AP, it said that in those areas information given by Tehran is either "consistent with its findings (or) ... not inconsistent with its findings," suggesting it was content for now with explanations that these activities were not weapons-related.
Still, it said Iran "has not suspended its enrichment-related activities." Instead, said the report, Iran "started the development of new-generation centrifuges" — an expansion of enrichment — and continued working on heavy water nuclear facilities.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York described the findings of the report as "unambiguously attesting to the exclusively peaceful nature of the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both in the past and at present."
But Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate to the IAEA, attacked Iran's failure to explain "detailed activities which ... would be relevant to nuclear weapon research and development."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also was dismissive: "We've heard about the Iranians cooperating in the past, yet many questions remain," he told reporters in Washington.
