Perilous Times
Iran making nuclear warhead, says director of UN watchdog
International Atomic Energy Agency warns Iran could be developing a
'nuclear payload for a missile'
* Julian Borger
*
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 22.05 GMT
Yukiya Amano says Iran could be making a nuclear weapon
The director general of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, says Iran could be
making a nuclear weapon. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
The UN's nuclear watchdog raised concerns for the first time today that
Iran might be developing a nuclear warhead for a missile.
In his first report on Iran, the new director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, broke with the
more cautious style of his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, and
suggested Iran could have looked into the construction of a weapon, and
that weaponisation work could be under way.
Amano's report to the IAEA board also confirmed that Iran had succeeded
in producing 20% enriched uranium, a level of enrichment much closer to
weapons grade than it had attempted before. It criticised the Iranian
authorities for taking the step without giving IAEA inspectors notice.
Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said the report
confirmed Iran's "peaceful nuclear activities". But Amano's comments on
the "possible military dimensions" of the programme are likely to add
to the diplomatic pressure on Tehran, as they go further than the
official position of US intelligence, that weaponisation work is likely
to have been suspended in 2003.
Britain, France and Germany have all distanced themselves from the US
assessment, and their intelligence agencies now believe that even if
Iranian work on warhead design did stop, it has now resumed. American
officials have said informally they agree with that conclusion but have
yet to update their official position.
The report said the IAEA's information "raises concerns about the
possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities
related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile". The
wording goes much further than earlier reports by ElBaradei, who
repeatedly refrained from explicitly spelling out the implications of
evidence on weapons-building his inspectors had gathered.
The Foreign Office said: "The IAEA's charge sheet against Iran is
getting longer and longer with each report."