The UN nuclear watchdog says Iran is defying a UN Security Council ban on uranium enrichment and is accusing the US and its allies of fabricating information to back up claims that Tehran is making nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was a "very strong case" for moving forward with a third round of sanctions against Tehran, while Iran said the report's findings confirmed that its nuclear program is a peaceful one.
The 11-page report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran "has not suspended its enrichment-related activities," despite two sets of UN Security Council sanctions over fears the program might be used to make weapons-grade uranium instead of the nuclear fuel Iran says it is interested in.
Instead, the report said, Iran "started the development of new-generation centrifuges" -- an expansion of enrichment -- and continued working on heavy water nuclear facilities. When finished, Iran could cull them for plutonium, a possible fissile payload in nuclear warheads.
The report said that Tehran has cooperated in other areas of an IAEA probe, leading the agency to put to rest for now suspicions that several past experiments and activities were linked to a weapons program.
The report suggested the IAEA was satisfied with answers provided by Iran on the origin of traces of enriched uranium in a military facility; on experiments with polonium, which can also be used in a weapons program; and on purchases on the nuclear black market.
It said that in those areas information given by Tehran is either "consistent with its findings [or] ... not inconsistent with its findings," suggesting it was content for now with explanations that these activities were not weapons-related.
Iranian UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazee said the report "clearly attests to the exclusively peaceful nature of the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both in the past and at present."
The report "also serves to strongly and unambiguously support my country's long-standing position that the allegations raised by a few powers against the peaceful nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been entirely groundless," Khazee said.
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