Iran Official Fires Back at U.N. Report on Nuclear Disclosure

Reacting to a report that it had not disclosed all information about its nuclear activities to the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, a top Iranian official said Wednesday that Iran was not obliged to reveal all aspects of its program.

Hassan Rowhani, secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, said Iran did not think it was necessary to reveal to the International Atomic Energy Agency the outcome of its research on the production of a P2 centrifuge, an advanced device for enriching uranium.

Rowhani, the official news agency IRNA reported, repeated Iran’s denial that it had P2 centrifuges, and said Iran was just conducting research or designing a prototype.

He said Iran was also engaged in other kinds of nuclear research that had not been reported to the IAEA and which it did not deem necessary to report. Iran’s answers to the agency were full and complete, he said.

Tehran has been under international pressure to reveal all aspects of its nuclear program and made what it said was a full declaration to the IAEA in October.

“I’m sure the IAEA will find this very interesting,” a senior Western diplomat said Wednesday in reaction to Rowhani’s statements. “It doesn’t match what the Iranians said in October when they turned over their declaration, which was supposed to be complete.”

U.S. officials have accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran has denied, saying that its nuclear program was purely for nonmilitary purposes.

The report this week by the IAEA found that Iran had cooperated extensively with the agency but expressed concern about why it failed to declare its possession of drawings for the P2 centrifuge. It also expressed concern about the source of highly enriched plutonium found in two locations in Iran last year.

Iran initially concealed its possession of the P1 centrifuge but recently agreed to suspend production of centrifuges.

The P2 is capable of producing twice as much enriched plutonium as the P1.

Rowhani said Iran’s voluntary suspension of production of centrifuges was a goodwill gesture to build confidence internationally. He said the country would later go back to producing them, but he gave no time frame.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said that the IAEA had Tehran’s full cooperation and that the agency’s concerns were “procedural.” The IAEA’s inspections would show that Iran’s program did not aim to develop weapons, he said.

The international agency’s report also said Iran had been working to produce polonium, which can be used to help trigger a nuclear chain reaction but also has civilian uses.

Asefi said the polonium issue was a misunderstanding concerning old research dating back 13 years and would soon be cleared up.

Times staff writer Douglas Frantz in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this report.