Inspectors from the UN nuclear agency headed to Tehran to take stock of Iran's controversial atomic activities amid publication of an agency report which claims Tehran failed to honor promises to safeguard nuclear material.
The long-awaited report comes only 10 days before a critical meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board, which is expected to discuss Iran's nuclear programs. The US wants the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at the session June 16.
Washington has accused Iran's leadership of building a uranium enrichment plant in the central city of Natanz that could be used for atomic weapons production.
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 the inspection team that left Friday for Tehran was part of a regimen agreed to by Iran to defuse accusations it was working on a nuclear program and described the visit as a sign that the country was eager to cooperate with the agency.
Both 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.
The diplomat stressed, however, that efforts were being made to bring Iran into compliance. Iran has said it is complying with IAEA rules and has no plans to make a bomb.
In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Iran's nuclear program and a UN agency report on it were deeply troubling.
He refused to give details of what the US found unsettling, but said Washington would work closely with board members of the IAEA to decide what to do next. One option would be to take the issue to the UN 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.
Asked whether the issue should be referred to the Security Council, Boucher said, "I'm not predicting any specific action at this point."
The report follows a visit to Iran in February 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 that the facilities were safe.
ElBaradei's visit included a tour of the incomplete nuclear plant in Natanz, about 320km south of Tehran.
Diplomats accompanying him at the time said that he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project there using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
A senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, recently said that the technology was invented by URENCO, a British-German-Dutch consortium.
But the official suggested that the technology was not provided through the firm but was instead stolen and sold to Iran.
In Juelich, near Cologne, Germany, Gustav Meyer-Kretschmer, Urenco Deutschland's general manager, said, "We have no business relations with Iran, and we never did."
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