Iran Restricted Inspectors, IAEA Says

An internal report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency challenges Iran’s contention that it has provided international inspectors with free access to workshops where it has manufactured parts for centrifuges.

The document contradicts Iranian assurances this month that it had allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, unrestricted access to the sites during inspections in January.

“The agency’s visit was ‘managed’ by the Iranians in the sense that the inspectors were not permitted to take pictures with IAEA cameras or use their own electronic equipment,” said the document, which was first reported by Reuters and obtained Wednesday by The Times.

Iran signed an agreement in December promising inspectors unfettered access to its nuclear facilities and to sites where the agency suspected nuclear activities might have taken place. The agreement came after inspectors discovered traces of weapons-grade uranium at two locations and other evidence that Iran had failed to disclose.

In a paper circulated last month to the 35 countries on the IAEA board in Vienna, Iran maintained that it had granted “full and unrestricted access” to its nuclear sites.

The contradictory report from the international agency was disclosed on the same day that Britain, France and Germany criticized Iran for starting operations at a uranium conversion facility in Esfahan.

The plant is designed to transform uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride, a gas used in centrifuges to produce enriched uranium, which can be used in civilian reactors or in the production of weapons.

The Times reported Saturday that enrichment had begun at the plant in late February, and Tehran later acknowledged that it was starting operations there. The three European countries, which negotiated an agreement with Iran to suspend uranium enrichment last fall, said the start-up sent the “wrong signal” to the international community about Tehran’s intentions.

A team of inspectors arrived in Iran on Saturday to inspect the Esfahan facility and a huge centrifuge plant under construction near the central city of Natanz.

The IAEA and the Europeans have worked to keep negotiations with Tehran on track. The United States has urged tougher action because Washington believes that Iran is concealing a nuclear weapons effort under the guise of what Tehran says is a civilian program.

On March 12, the IAEA board issued a resolution that condemned Iran’s failure to inform the agency of key aspects of its nuclear program, including work on advanced centrifuges and experiments with an isotope used in nuclear weapons.

IAEA criticism of Iran disclosed Wednesday differed markedly from the agency’s conciliatory public statements and reflected what insiders said was a growing concern about whether Iran had been forthcoming about its nuclear ambitions.

Along with criticizing Iran’s restrictions on earlier inspections, the internal report said questions remained about experiments conducted by Iran more than a decade ago to produce polonium-210. The substance has no known civilian uses, but it can be used to trigger a chain reaction in a nuclear weapon.

Recent intelligence, including a report cited by The Times on Saturday, has fueled suspicions that Iran is concealing a large number of facilities where it is working on centrifuges to enrich uranium and conducting experiments related to weapons production.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, formerly an official with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exile group opposed to the government in Iran, said in an e-mail that the concealment effort reached all the way to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s supreme leader.

The ayatollah met with senior government officials in February, after disclosures about Pakistan’s secret sales of nuclear technology to Iran, in an effort to speed up the weapons program and develop a bomb by 2005, said Jafarzadeh, now president of a Washington consulting firm.

Pirooz Hosseini, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said earlier that accusations about a cover-up were baseless and that Iran had complied fully with its disclosure obligations.