Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed
ElBaradei yesterday referred a report on Iran's nuclear program to 35 governing
board countries, urging Iran to increase the transparency of its nuclear program
and cooperate with the IAEA.
The report introduced IAEA's recent investigation on Iran's nuclear program,
and pointed out that Iran did not provide further cooperation to the
international nuclear watchdog.
Iran has been "requested to provide further clarification" of enriched
uranium as well as plutonium particles and responded to this request on Tuesday,
the report said.
Such cooperation by Iran was a "prerequisite for the agency to be able to
confirm the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program," it added.
The report also indicated that Iran did not observe the resolution of the
United Nations Security Council, and kept on its uranium enrichment activities.
The report said that the IAEA had found unexplained plutonium and highly
enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and asked Tehran for
an explanation.
Iran had launched the second group of centrifugal machines, and began to
infuse uranium hexafluoride into the machines, it said.
From August to November, Iran's nuclear establishment in Natanzhad produced a
few lower enriched uranium, said the report.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his country's nuclear
program would soon be completed and the world now had no choice but to "live
with a nuclear Iran."
Ahmadinejad announced that the ultimate aim of Iran's atomic drive was to
install some 60,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel.
Tehran insists it seeks enrichment capabilities only to be able to generate
low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and not the highly enriched variety used
for weapons.
The IAEA was scheduled to hold a two-day conference in Vienna on Nov. 23-24
at which Elbaradei's report on Iran's nuclear issue will be discussed.
UN Security Council ratified the 1696 resolution on Iran's nuclear issue in
July, calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment related activities.
Otherwise, Iran might face international sanctions.