VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Iran may have continued work on nuclear weapons past 2003, the year U.S. intelligence says such activities stopped, a senior British diplomat said Monday.
Simon Smith, the chief British delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, commented after an IAEA presentation of documentation that — if accurate — would strongly back U.S. claims that Iran at one point worked on programs linked to attempts to make nuclear weapons.
That assertion was also made by a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, summarized and made public late last year said. That report also said, however, that the Iranians froze such work in 2003.
Asked whether the information presented to the IAEA's 35 board member nations indicated that Tehran continued such activities past that date, Smith said: "Certainly some of the dates ... went beyond 2003."
He did not elaborate. Another diplomat at the presentation, who asked for anonymity because the IAEA meeting was closed, said some of the documentation focused on a 2004 Iranian report on alleged weapons activities. But she said it was unclear whether the project was being actively worked at then.
A senior diplomat inside the meeting said that among the material shown was an Iranian video depicting mock-ups of a missile re-entry vehicle.
He said IAEA Director General Oli Heinonen suggested the component — which brings missiles back into from the stratosphere — was configured in a way that strongly suggests it was meant to carry a nuclear warhead.
Smith and the senior diplomat both said the material shown to the board members came from a "multitude of sources," including information gathered by the agency and intelligence provided by the members themselves.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear monitor, released a report last week saying that suspicions about most past Iranian nuclear activities had eased or been laid to rest.
But the report also noted that Iran had rejected documents that link it to missile and explosives experiments and other work connected to a possible nuclear weapons program, calling the information false and irrelevant.
The report called weaponization "the one major ... unsolved issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear program."
Most of the material shown to Iran by the IAEA on alleged attempts to make nuclear arms came from Washington, though some was provided by U.S. allies, diplomats told the AP. The agency shared it with Tehran only after the nations gave their permission.
**What does this mean to us? Will it have an impact on policy? Please post your replies.
- Keyan
