Iran: UN inspectors have found traces of near bomb-grade enriched uranium on nuclear equipment in Iran, diplomats said yesterday, as the EU prepared a declaration that will insist Tehran shelve all enrichment work.
The new discovery was made on equipment from a former research site razed by Iran in 2004 before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could examine it, diplomats said.
A diplomat in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, confirmed the new finding from the former Lavizan-Shian site but cautioned: "It's no smoking gun. There could be many explanations. But it increases pressure on Iran to come clean about Lavizan."
Reacting to the report, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the students' news agency ISNA: "These comments lack any importance and do not come from a real source."
Word of the discovery came as EU officials were shaping a "carrot and stick" offer for Iran. Diplomats hope to have the offer ready in time for a May 19th meeting in London of the five veto-holding big powers on the Security Council plus Germany.
Meanwhile, on a visit to Indonesia, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the West's standoff with his country was just "psychological propaganda". He dismissed the chances of military action against his country as unlikely.
Mr Ahmadinejad also accused the IAEA of double standards and working under the influence of the United States, Britain and France.
"Every country has the right to defend its right in accordance with the agreed way," he said.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned that efforts to resolve the crisis diplomatically might prove vain unless Washington addressed what he said were Iran's legitimate security concerns.
"When you are talking about security, there is only one country that can talk to Iran and that is the US, it's not Europe," he said at a debate in the Netherlands.
Mr ElBaradei said Iran still had to clarify a number of issues but that the IAEA had not seen any "significant" nuclear material being undeclared or diverted into weapons.
"We haven't seen a clear and present danger. We haven't seen an imminent threat," he said, adding that he agreed with US estimates that Iran was five to 10 years from a nuclear bomb.
- (Reuters)