[Peace-discuss] the set up starts

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

U.N. Says Iran Not Complying on Nuke Info
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 
Filed at 9:25 p.m. ET

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran has not fully disclosed the extent of its atomic 
program to the U.N. nuclear agency as required by international treaty, the 
agency said Friday as its inspectors left for Tehran.

The State Department found the International Atomic Energy Agency report and 
Iran's nuclear program deeply troubling, department spokesman Richard Boucher 
said in Washington.

The long-awaited report comes 10 days before the IAEA meets to discuss Iran's 
programs. The United States wants the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of 
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at the June 16 session.

A diplomat from an IAEA member country said the report indicated that Iran 
failed to declare the import of some nuclear material and its subsequent 
processing.

Another diplomat said Iran agreed to accept the inspection team to defuse 
accusations it was working on a nuclear program. Both diplomats spoke on 
condition of anonymity.

Still, the report was critical.

``Iran has failed to meet its obligations under its safeguards agreement with 
respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and 
use of that material and the declaration of facilities where that material was 
stored and processed,'' the first diplomat quoted the report as saying.

Iran, however, has said it is complying with IAEA rules and has no plans to 
make a bomb.

In Washington, Boucher refused to detail what the United States found 
unsettling in the report, but said the administration would work closely with IAEA 
board members to decide what to do next. One option would be to take the issue 
to the United Nations by asking for Security Council action.

``We think the report, and Iran's programs themselves, are deeply troubling 
and need to be studied carefully by all members'' of the IAEA, Boucher said.

The report follows a February visit to Iran by Mohammed ElBaradei, the 
director-general of the IAEA. His tour of Iran's nuclear facilities was intended to 
ensure that its nuclear industry was limited to peaceful, civilian purposes 
and the facilities were safe.

ElBaradei's visit included a tour of the incomplete nuclear plant in Natanz, 
about 200 miles south of Tehran. Diplomats accompanying him at the time said 
he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project there using hundreds of 
centrifuges to enrich uranium.

A senior U.S. administration official recently said on condition of anonymity 
that the technology was invented by URENCO, a British-German-Dutch 
consortium, but suggested it was not provided through the firm but instead was stolen 
and then sold to Iran.

Gustav Meyer-Kretschmer, a URENCO official in Germany, said, ``We have no 
business relations with Iran, and we never did.''