Iran castigated for 18 years of “lies”
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has slammed Iran for systematically hiding the truth about its nuclear programme for the last 18 years.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran had willingly covered up plans to make fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The IAEA said it had firm evidence that Iran had successfully enriched uranium and extracted plutonium, both of which breached the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The IAEA said Iran had maintained a uranium centrifuge enrichment programme for the past 18 years, and a laser enrichment programme for the past 12.
Overall, the report charged Iran with nine separate “failures” to comply with the NPT.
Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, said: “Iran’s policy of concealment continued until last month with co-operation being limited and reactive, and information being slow in coming, changing and contradictory.
“Given Iran’s past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”
Though there was ‘no evidence’ that Iran had tried to make an atomic bomb, the IAEA said “robust” measures were necessary to rule out such a future possibility.
The IAEA board will meet in Vienna next week to decide on the next course of action.
