Financial Times – The United Nations nuclear watchdog declared on Monday that it had reached a dead end in its year-long effort to get Iran to clarify whether it covertly researched the development of a nuclear weapon.
Unveiling one of the most damning reports it has yet published on Irans nuclear programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been unable to make any substantive progress in its attempt to get Iran to answer allegations that there may have been a military dimension to its nuclear programme.
In addition, Iran has stepped up the pace of uranium enrichment, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons grade material, accumulating more than 300kg of low enriched uranium by the end of last month, according to the report. The vast majority of the material has been produced this year.
Some analysts say that if Iran accumulated 600kg-700kg of low enriched uranium it would reach breakout capacity the brink of nuclear weapons status since if such a stockpile were run though Irans facilities again, it would provide enough fissile material for one bomb. But IAEA officials argue that considerably more would be needed for a significant nuclear weapon.
The IAEA also reported that Iran had raised the number of centrifuges enriching uranium by 500 to 3,820 since May and was testing an advanced model able to refine nuclear fuel two to three times faster, in continuing defiance of UN resolutions. A senior IAEA official said that the agency would press ahead with attempts to get Iran to hand over information needed to explain intelligence material showing it had once linked its nuclear programme to the testing of high explosives and to the modification of a missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.
However, in a sign of frustration within the IAEA at Irans refusal to co-operate, the official said: Iran has so far not been forthcoming in replying to our questions and we seem to be at a dead end there.
The report is likely to boost the attempts by powers led by the US , UK and France who seek a new UN sanctions resolution against Iran later this year.
However, diplomats say that tension between Russia and the US makes any new round of UN sanctions against Iran unlikely before President George W. Bush leaves office.
In its report, the IAEA said it believed that Irans attempts to build a modified missile cone may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise.
An IAEA official said the agencys understanding was that the assistance may have come from non-state actors.
