Iran, accused by the United States of trying to build an atomic bomb, dismissed new allegations Thursday that it was carrying out sensitive, undeclared nuclear activities at a military base.
Diplomats at the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna said U.N. inspectors found components that could be used in advanced centrifuges for extracting enriched uranium, which can be used as nuclear fuel or to make an atomic bomb.
“Iran’s nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and Iran has not had and nor does it have military nuclear activities,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement faxed to Reuters.
At issue is whether Iran made omissions in what it says was a full declaration of its nuclear technology to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in October.
“This stuff should have been declared,” one Western diplomat told Reuters.
USA Today reported the parts had been found at a military base called Doshan Tapeh. Diplomats said the parts were compatible with the “P2” uranium-enrichment centrifuge, a Pakistani version of the advanced Western “G2” design.
Asefi said, “In none of Iran’s military centers is a nuclear program being pursued and P2 centrifuges do not exist in such centers.”
There was no comment from the IAEA.
Charge and denial
The exchanges were the latest in a long series of allegations and denials surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, which it insists is purely for generating electricity.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said only last week there was no doubt Tehran was pursuing nuclear weapons, and accused it of systematic deception.
U.S. officials have also made clear Washington is in no rush to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions.
The European Union trio of Britain, France and Germany, persuaded Iran last November to suspend uranium enrichment and accept more intrusive international inspections.
“So much depends on what the ’EU three’ do. (Washington) is committed to the ’EU-three’ process,” the Western diplomat said.
Iran said this week it had held blueprints for the G2 system, but denied allegations from Western diplomats it committed a serious offense by failing to declare them.
“(This) is not something the agency has discovered. Iran has informed the agency about it. ... It’s a sheer lie that Iran is manufacturing G2 centrifuges,” Hossein Mousavian, head of foreign relations at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in comments published Monday.
The discovery of the G2 designs led some arms experts to speculate Iran may have a secret enrichment facility apart from one at Natanz in the center of the country, which is being built to accommodate older G1 centrifuges.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to circulate two reports next week on U.N. inspections, one on Iran and the other on Libya, which admitted in December to pursuing weapons of mass destruction and agreed to give them up voluntarily.
Several diplomats and arms experts have said they believe the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, offered Iran his centrifuge designs on the black market.
Gas centrifuges spin at supersonic speeds to separate fissile uranium-235 from nonfissile uranium isotopes. Experts say acquiring weapons-grade material is the biggest hurdle countries seeking to make an atomic bomb must overcome.
