UN nuke watchdog shows evidence of bomb programme

Vienna: The UN nuclear watchdog produced documents and photographs on Tuesday suggesting Iran secretly tried to modify a missile cone to fit a nuclear bomb, diplomats said, and Tehran again dismissed the findings as forged.

Iran said an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inquiry into its nuclear activity was at a dead-end because the IAEA was demanding Tehran reveal conventional military secrets without nuclear dimensions. Iran has denied seeking atom bombs.

The Vienna-based UN watchdog said in a report on Monday that Iranian stonewalling had brought an agency inquiry to resolve whether Tehran had covertly researched ways to make a nuclear bomb to a standstill.

Report findings

Herman Naeckerts, the agency's head of inspections in the Middle East region, briefed its governing board on the report's findings on Tuesday ahead of a meeting by the 35-nation body next week likely to heighten pressure on Iran to cooperate.

Washington's IAEA envoy said Naeckerts presented photos and diagrams of Iranian work on re-designing a Shabab-3 "to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon".

"The [IAEA] Secretariat told us the information they have is in their words, 'very credible', unquote, and they have asked Iran to provide 'substantive responses', unquote," Ambassador Gregory Schulte told reporters.

Other diplomats in the meeting said Naeckerts emphasised the information remained unverified. "His presentation was professional and balanced," one said, requesting anonymity.

Iran said it faced extraordinary and unacceptable pressure to prove unverified allegations were wrong by revealing information vital to its national security.

"No country would give information about its conventional military activities," Iran's IAEA ambassador said.

"I said in this briefing, 'Who in the world would believe there are a series of top secret documents US intelligence found in a laptop regarding a Manhattan Project-type nuclear (bomb programme) in Iran and none of these documents bore seals of 'high confidential' or 'secret'?" Ali Asghar Soltanieh said.