ElBaradei presses N. Korea, Iran on nuclear threat

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency yesterday pressed North Korea to come clean on its nuclear programme, told Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and said UN inspectors should return to Iraq.

In his annual speech to the UN General Assembly, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said North Korea continued "to pose a serious challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime" and that the IAEA could not "provide any level of assurance about the non-diversion of nuclear material".

US officials say Pyongyang has one or two nuclear weapons already plus material for another six bombs.

The latest crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions began in October 2002 when US officials said Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing a secret uranium-enrichment programme.

North Korea now denies having such a programme, and has demanded energy aid and diplomatic concessions in return for freezing an older, plutonium-based nuclear arms programme.

In Iran, ElBaradei said that the IAEA had made some progress but that Tehran needed to suspend all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities as a confidence-building measure.

"I have continued to stress to Iran that, in light of serious international concerns surrounding its nuclear programme, it should do its utmost to build confidence through these voluntary measures," Mr ElBaradei said, adding that Iran's cooperation had improved "appreciably".

"We agree completely and we hope his assessment that they will comply is right," Richard Grenell, spokesman for US Ambassador John Danforth, told Reuters.

Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, Iran's deputy UN ambassador, said Tehran's programme was aimed at producing fuel for atomic reactors generating electricity.

The same process can be used to make atomic bombs and Tehran risks being reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if it does not freeze enrichment before an IAEA board meeting on November 25.

In Tehran, a senior official told Reuters yesterday that Iran could agree to freeze uranium enrichment for six months at most and only if the European Union abandons its demand that Tehran scrap enrichment for good.

Danesh-Yazdi said Tehran would cooperate with the IAEA but said actions against Iran were politically motivated. He also said it was "plausible" that contamination found in Iran had not resulted from uranium enrichment.

Mr ElBaradei also said Iraq should again be placed under UN monitoring, as it was under former President Saddam Hussein.

He did not mention directly the controversy over missing explosives in Iraq, which has featured in the US election campaign after he reported that nearly 380 tonnes of high explosives monitored by the IAEA were no longer at a military facility south of Baghdad.