Iran seen slowing nuclear activities
But enrichment growing, UN says
CAIRO - Iran has slowed its nuclear activities and is cooperating more fully in clearing up questions about its efforts, but the country continues to expand its enrichment of uranium, according to a UN agency report.
US and European officials suspect that Iran's civilian nuclear energy program masks a clandestine effort to obtain technology that could be used in the making of an atomic bomb. They have threatened to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Tehran when the UN Security Council takes up the issue again, probably next month.
The International Atomic Energy Agency distributed limited copies of its report ahead of a Sept. 10 meeting of the 35-member group's board.
The findings reflect an Aug. 21 agency agreement with Tehran that Iranian officials began publicizing several days ago. That accord said that there were "no other remaining issues and ambiguities regarding Iran's past nuclear program and activities."
"The work plan is a significant step forward," the IAEA report said of last week's agreement, according to Reuters. The news agency quoted a senior UN official as saying Iran's efforts to enrich uranium had slowed.
The report warned, however, that Iran must "continue to build confidence about the scope and nature of its present and future nuclear program."
Iran shrugged off that caution and took the diplomatic offensive yesterday, highlighting its cooperation with the IAEA in apparent hopes of staving off a further round of international sanctions.
"The report emphasized once again that there exists no sign or evidence indicating diversion of Iran's nuclear activities and that all Iran's nuclear materials have been audited," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's representative to the IAEA, told Tehran's Fars News Agency.
Assertions by Iranians and the UN agency that there were "no other remaining issues or ambiguities" outraged some nonproliferation specialists, who said the IAEA was ceding too much to Iran.
"The idea of closing files violates fundamental safeguards principles," arms-control specialists David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, wrote in a criticism published this week.
"The agreement does not specify that Iran would provide the IAEA access to key people, facilities, and documents that are needed to verify Iranian answers to the IAEA's questions."
Most Western nonproliferation specialists said the latest agreement contained little that could dissuade key policymakers in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin from pushing forward with another round of Security Council sanctions.
Independent experts said Iran's latest agreement with the IAEA, which gives inspectors access to more nuclear sites and information, falls well short of the West's demand to halt the production of the concentrated uranium that could potentially be used for a bomb.
