'Iran revelation could mean more secret sites'
Russia delays start of Iranian nuclear plant again
The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is concerned that Iran's belated revelation of a new uranium enrichment site may mean it is hiding further nuclear activity, an agency report said yesterday.
The report said Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun building the plant within a bunker beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom in 2007, but the IAEA had evidence the project had begun in 2002.
Iran reported its existence to the IAEA in September after, Western diplomats said at the time, learning that US, French and British spy services had discovered it.
IAEA inspectors admitted on October 26-27 to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Site found construction well advanced. Iran told the Vienna-based agency it would be started up in 2011.
"The agency has indicated (to Iran) that its declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities not declared to the agency," the report said.
"(The IAEA wrote to Iran on November 6) asking for a clear statement on whether they have similar facilities they have decided to build or are building, or have built. The IAEA has not got an explicit answer as of this morning," said a senior international official familiar with the inquiry.
Diplomats say the site's small size makes it unsuitable for any purpose but to enrich lower quantities of uranium suitable for a bomb, and the IAEA said Iran still had a number of questions to answer about the site's chronology and purpose.
Russia yesterday announced a new delay to Iran's first nuclear power station, saying technical issues would prevent its engineers from starting the Bushehr reactor by the end of 2010, but that politics had nothing to do with the decision.
However, diplomats say Russia uses Bushehr as a lever in relations with Tehran, and the US has been urging Russia to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme.
Russia started deliveries of nuclear fuel for Bushehr in late 2007, a step both Washington and Moscow said removed any need for Iran, the world's fourth biggest crude oil producer, to have its own uranium enrichment programme.
Iran told the IAEA the Fordow site was hatched as a fallback to preserve its declared civilian enrichment programme if the far larger Natanz complex, under IAEA monitoring since 2002, was bombed by enemies such as Israel.