The US said on Wednesday a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog confirmed Washington's belief in a secret Iranian nuclear program, while Tehran insisted its nuclear policy was peaceful.
In the first US reaction to a confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Undersecretary of State John Bolton said its finding that there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program was "impossible to believe."
Bolton said the report circulated on Monday actually reaffirmed the US contention that "the massive and covert Iranian effort to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program."
Some arms experts also said the report by the Vienna-based IAEA supported US claims Tehran had a secret atomic weapons program. Iran's President Mohammad Khatami insisted its nuclear policy was purely peaceful.
The former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, said there was no direct evidence Iran was engaged in a civilian energy program to make a nuclear bomb.
But Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said in an address in Washington Iran's nuclear program could reach "the point of no return" within a year unless there was strong international pressure to stop it.
The IAEA report criticized Iran's nuclear policy, but said there was no proof it had a weapons program. The agency said it needed more time to establish whether its research was for peaceful purposes, as Iran said it was.
The report said Iran had had a centrifuge uranium enrichment program for 18 years and a high-tech laser enrichment program for 12 years, both of which it had hidden from the UN.
It also said Iran admitted producing small amounts of plutonium, useable in a bomb and with virtually no civilian uses, and had conducted secret tests of its enrichment centrifuges using nuclear material.
In Tehran, Khatami said Tehran's nuclear plans were purely peaceful.
"It's not important what machinery we have, it's important that we are not pursuing nuclear weapons," he said.
He was optimistic Iran would avoid being reported to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions despite the IAEA report, if its case was studied technically and legally, rather than in political terms.
But some arms experts said the report backed US claims of a secret nuclear weapons program.
Diplomats have said the IAEA findings proved Iran, at the very least, developed the know-how to build nuclear weapons.
"The report is a stunning revelation of how far a country can get in making The Bomb, while pretending to comply with international inspections," said Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a Washington-based think-tank. "This is a classic case of a bomb in the basement."
"Iran has secretly enriched uranium, made plutonium, and hidden the evidence of it from the world," he said. "There's only one reason why anybody would do that -- because they want to make the bomb."
"The Iranians are ... following the textbook written by the late Shah" -- who wanted the option of producing nuclear weapons -- Harald Mueller of Germany's Frankfurt Peace Research Institute said.
In a bid to head off international concern, Iran has in recent days submitted a comprehensive report to the IAEA on its past nuclear activity, agreed to allow snap UN inspections of its nuclear sites and suspended uranium enrichment.
Former UN weapons inspector Blix, who now heads a new Swedish-backed international commission on weapons of mass destruction, said Iran's civilian reactors were not themselves a worry and it was uncertain whether Tehran wanted to build a nuclear bomb.
"I haven't any evidence of that," he said in an interview at his Stockholm home. "I don't think these two reactors or a civilian nuclear program are a danger per se."
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