IAEA chief prods Iran on greater nuclear disclosure

The chief of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that he hoped to have answers by year’s end about how Iran acquired black-market nuclear technology and admonished Iranian officials to do more to allay fears that their nation is building an atomic bomb.

In a speech opening a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors, Mohamed ElBaradei defied expectations and focused less on Iran’s improved cooperation with inspectors in the last two months than on what Tehran needed to do now to assure that its nuclear program is peaceful.

The United Nations Security Council is expected soon to start debating a third round of sanctions that would punish Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium and fully disclose details of its nuclear program.

Iran must erase a “confidence deficit” created by 18 years of secrecy surrounding its program and its continued shielding of some nuclear sites from inspectors, ElBaradei said. To do that, it should stop uranium enrichment, swiftly provide more information about its program and allow inspectors unfettered access to all sites and nuclear experts, he said.

Because Tehran reduced access for IAEA inspectors in 2006, the agency knows less and less about Iran’s ongoing nuclear program while its atomic capability continues to grow, ElBaradei said.

He told the 35-member board that Iran had answered questions in the last four months about where it acquired technology to enrich uranium, a process that can be used for producing electricity as well as material for a bomb. In the coming weeks, agency officials will try to clarify discoveries that could suggest the development of nuclear weapons: equipment contaminated with uranium particles and studies allegedly related to how to trigger a nuclear bomb. They will also determine whether Iran started its nuclear program for military purposes.

The IAEA chief said Iran had shown “good progress” in answering questions about how it procured centrifuges for enrichment from the network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist known as the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb who later peddled his country’s nuclear technology. And ElBaradei credited Tehran with providing ahead of schedule a 15-page document showing how to craft uranium metal hemispheres for a nuclear warhead, a blueprint that Iran said was provided unsolicited by Khan’s network and not used to build anything.

Iran provided the information as part of a work plan reached with ElBaradei in August for answering questions about the history of its nuclear program. The IAEA chief has faced criticism from the U.S. and its allies that the methodical focus on the past does not illuminate questions about Iran’s current nuclear intentions and instead allows the government to stave off more sanctions while expanding its program.

In the year since the Security Council imposed initial sanctions, Iran has increased the number of centrifuges to 3,000 from 300, attaining a milestone capacity to enrich uranium on an industrial scale.

ElBaradei recently defended the work plan and Iran’s cooperation with his agency, saying they elicited more information in the last two months than Tehran had provided in the last two years. But Thursday, he was unexpectedly low-key about Iran’s improved cooperation, adding pressure on the government to be more “proactive.”

“The agency needs to have maximum clarity not only about Iran’s past program but equally or more important, about the present,” he said.

The IAEA report is meant to guide the Security Council in determining whether Iran is cooperating with the agency as required. But Security Council member countries differ on whether Iran’s partial cooperation means it deserves encouragement or punishment. Many of the IAEA board’s members -- including Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council who have often defended Iran -- urged Tehran to broaden its cooperation with inspectors and suspend enrichment as a good-faith gesture.

Iran’s representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Thursday that Tehran planned a meeting with the agency in the next two weeks to resolve the remaining issues in the work plan and expected the Security Council to stop pressing Iran on the issue of uranium enrichment.

“The present, past and future is now clear,” Soltanieh told reporters outside the meeting. “Now there is no legal and technical justification for asking suspension.”

Officials from the IAEA disagreed, saying that even if Iran answered all the outstanding questions about its past program, it must also suspend enrichment and disclose the nature and scope of its present program to rebuild the world’s confidence.

Security Council members said that Iran would face sanctions unless it halted its nuclear program and accepted broad inspections.

“We have seen this before,” said the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory L. Schulte. “Promises of full cooperation under international pressure, selective cooperation and backsliding when the pressure comes off.”

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maggie.farley@latimes.com