Files suggest Iran kept working on nukes

VIENNA: The UN nuclear monitoring agency yesterday presented documents that diplomats said indicated Iran might have focused on a nuclear weapons program after 2003 - the year in which a US intelligence report says such work stopped.

Iran again denied trying to make such arms. Iran's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, dismissed the information showcased by the body as "forgeries".

He and other diplomats, all linked to the IAEA, commented after a closed-door presentation to the agency's 35-nation board of intelligence findings from the US and allies and other information purporting to show Iranian attempts to make nuclear arms.

A US National Intelligence Estimate, made public late last year, also concluded that Tehran had been conducting atomic weapons work.

But it said the Iranians froze such work in 2003.

British IAEA delegate Simon Smith said information on weapons-related activities shown to board members "went beyond 2003".

Another diplomat said some documentation focused on an Iranian report on nuclear activities that experts have said could be related to weapons.

She said it was unclear whether the project was being worked on in 2004, or whether the report was a review of past activities.

A senior diplomat said the board was shown an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle.

He said IAEA director-general Oli Heinonen had suggested the component - which brings missiles back from the stratosphere - might have been meant to carry a nuclear warhead.

Other documentation showed the Iranians experimenting with warheads and missile trajectories where "the height of the burst didn't make sense for conventional warheads", he said.

Mr Smith said the IAEA had presented a "fairly detailed set of illustrations and descriptions of how you would build a nuclear warhead, how you would fit it into a delivery vehicle, how you would expect it to perform".

The UN agency released a report last week saying that suspicions about most past Iranian nuclear activities had eased or been laid to rest.

Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazee, said the information turned over to the IAEA was "baseless".

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the latest report bolstered a "very strong case" for a third round of sanctions over the nuclear program, the BBC reported.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not be deterred from its nuclear path.

"If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed," he said. "They can issue resolutions for 100 years"