Evidence May Indicate Iran Closing In on Nuclear Arms

International inspectors confirmed Tuesday that particles of highly enriched uranium had been discovered in two separate samples taken at a nuclear facility in Iran, raising the possibility that Tehran is further along in developing a nuclear weapon than experts had predicted.

The finding was contained in a confidential report prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that provided detailed descriptions of numerous contradictions and misstatements by Iran in recent months. A copy of the 10-page report was provided to The Times by a source outside the agency.

It was clear that critical questions about Iran’s nuclear program remained unanswered in the report, particularly about uranium enrichment, the purification process that creates fuel for reactors or material for weapons. Those questions are significant because the answers could indicate a weapons program and because Iran is required under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to disclose any such enrichment to the IAEA.

The report did not link the minute traces of highly enriched uranium found at the Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran to any weapons effort. Although a diplomat who reviewed the report said the particles were not proof that Iran had enriched uranium, he said that discovery and other findings were strong evidence that Tehran had lied about its nuclear activities.

Iran insists that it is only building commercial nuclear reactors to generate electricity and dismissed the particles as contamination from before it acquired the equipment. The United States has accused Iran of using its commercial program to disguise a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb.

Attempts to reach Iranian officials in Vienna and Tehran were unsuccessful. The official Iranian news agency IRNA said that Iran’s representative to the IAEA said the country was ready to sign an agreement to allow more intrusive international inspections of its nuclear facilities.

“Iran would like to clarify some aspects regarding the preservation of its sovereignty due to the so-called undeclared inspections that are envisioned,” Ali Akbar Salehi, the representative, was quoted as saying.

Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the IAEA in Vienna, said in a telephone interview that inspectors were analyzing information from five trips to Iran since the previous report, issued in June. That document criticized Iran for concealing previous nuclear activities and was somewhat harsher in tone.

The latest report said the discovery of the highly enriched uranium particles at Natanz and an Iranian admission of uranium conversion at another facility appeared to contradict earlier claims by Iran that it had not enriched uranium.

Iran also told the agency in recent days that it had obtained technology for enriching uranium from unidentified foreign sources in the late 1980s, the report said. Iran had previously told the agency that it had developed the technology on its own, beginning in 1997.

Although the report praised Tehran for improved cooperation, it also complained that “information and access were at times slow in coming and incremental.”

The agency’s 35-nation board is scheduled to meet Sept. 8. The United States is expected to push for a finding that Iran is not complying with the nonproliferation treaty and ask for the matter to be referred to the United Nations Security Council. The council could order sanctions.

A senior Bush administration official said in a telephone interview from Washington that the United States will certainly press for the issue to be taken to the Security Council and for Iran to be declared in noncompliance.

“We are disappointed that the IAEA did not come right out and say that the Iranians have been lying to them and have not been cooperating. I wish the IAEA could be more blunt about this, but the facts are in the report,” the official said.

The discrepancy was one of a series of contradictions and gaps in the report in which Iran acknowledged specific activities only after repeated requests and outside pressure.

“What seems clear is that Iran has got caught up in some lies and is giving ground grudgingly and slowly,” said a European diplomat who had been briefed on the new report.

For months inspectors tried to get access to a small workshop outside Tehran called Kalaye Electric Co. An Iranian exile group had said that the facility, officially described as a watch factory, was part of the secret nuclear complex.

In March and again in June, inspectors were denied full access to the site. In July, Iran told the agency that it was not yet willing to permit samples to be taken at Kalaye.

In meetings in Tehran on Aug. 9, Iran acknowledged for the first time that its enrichment activities were concentrated at Kalaye from 1997 until last year and it agreed to permit the inspectors to take environmental samples to determine whether uranium was enriched there.

The analysis of the samples is not finished, but the report said it was unclear whether the results would be of any use because of structural changes and modifications at Kalaye since the March visit.

Iranian officials said the construction was part of the facility’s conversion to new uses, but a nuclear expert familiar with the report and the inspection process said, “They sanitized the place.”

The U.S. official said, “They repainted and cleaned the rooms to try to hide the evidence that there had been uranium reprocessing there. That was a nice way of putting the fact that they were trying to cover it up.”

A former Iranian security official went further, saying in a recent interview with The Times that workers removed 6 feet of topsoil from areas within Kalaye and rebuilt some rooms.

The earlier samples taken at Natanz, about 200 miles south of Tehran, found evidence of highly enriched uranium, but there are questions about its origin.

When IAEA officials were allowed in last February, they found a huge facility under construction. There was a pilot plant for enriching uranium by using gas centrifuges, and two underground halls to contain thousands of centrifuges.

Iran told the agency several times that it had developed its centrifuge program without outside help and without using enriched uranium, both assertions doubted by outside experts and some inspectors, according to interviews this summer and the report.

IAEA inspectors took environmental samples at Natanz between March and June. At a meeting with Iranian officials in July, the inspectors said one sample had tested positive for particles of highly enriched uranium, according to the report.

The Iranians said they would look into the matter. On Aug. 9, the Iranians told the agency that the particles had come from contamination of centrifuge components imported by Iran, according to the report.

But the inspectors replied that a new analysis completed since the July disclosure had revealed a second type of highly enriched uranium from a different centrifuge machine, the report said. Additional samples were still being analyzed, and the agency said it had not reached a final conclusion on the origin of the enriched uranium.

The agency said it was also investigating uranium conversion activities at research facilities using uranium chemicals imported secretly from China in 1991.

Iran had said it never used nuclear material in its research, according to the report. But after pressure from the inspectors, Iran acknowledged last week in a letter to the agency that it had undertaken uranium conversion experiments in the early 1990s.

Also for the first time, Iran said it had acquired some of its centrifuge technology from foreign entities. The countries were not identified in the report, but nuclear experts say the supplier is probably Pakistan.

“Several indications point to Pakistan,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, based in Washington. The centrifuge design and other components necessary to enrich uranium are similar to designs circulated by Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb.

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Frantz reported from Istanbul, Turkey.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

‘Information and Access Were at Times Slow in Coming’

EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORT

* On the gas centrifuge program to enrich uranium:

“The Iranian authorities also explained that during the first phase, components had been obtained from abroad through foreign intermediaries or directly by Iranian entities, but that no help had been received from abroad to assemble centrifuges or provide training.”

* At Kalaye Electric Co. in August:

“It was noted by inspectors that there had been considerable modification of the premises since their first visit in March 2003. Iranian authorities informed that agency that these modifications are attributable to the fact that the workshop is being transformed from use as a storage facility to its use as a laboratory for nondestructive analysis. This modification may impact on the accuracy of the environmental sampling and the agency’s ability to verify Iran’s declarations about the types of activities previously carried out there.”

* On the discovery of weapons-grade uranium at the Natanz plant:

“Conceptually, it is possible to envisage a number of possible scenarios to explain the presence of highly enriched uranium in environmental samples at Natanz. As part of the agency’s ongoing detailed plan of investigation each scenario will be considered carefully by agency experts.”

* On whether Iran has enriched uranium:

“Additional work is also required to enable the agency to arrive at conclusions about Iran’s statements that there have been no enrichment activities in Iran involving nuclear material.”

* On progress since the June report on Iran:

“Since the last report was issued, Iran has demonstrated an increased degree of cooperation in relation to the amount and detail of information provided to the agency and in allowing access requested by the agency.... However, it should be noted that information and access were at times slow in coming and incremental, and that, as noted above, some of the information was in contrast to that previously provided by Iran.”

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These excerpts are taken from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Iran’s compliance with nuclear safeguard agreements.