Iran has condemned a report from the UN nuclear watchdog that says Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research.
Citing what it called "credible" information from member states and elsewhere, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) listed a series of activities applicable to developing nuclear weapons, such as high explosives testing and development of an atomic bomb trigger.
Iran has started moving nuclear material to an underground facility for the pursuit of sensitive atomic activities, the UN nuclear agency report said. The document also said Iran had continued to stockpile low-enriched uranium.
The information that Iran last month moved a "large cylinder" with low-enriched uranium to the Fordow subterranean site was included in the UN body's most comprehensive report yet pointing to military aspects of Tehran's nuclear programme.
Iran, which denies it wants nuclear weapons, condemned the findings of the Vienna-based IAEA as "unbalanced" and "politically motivated."
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said the report was based on "invalid" information from Washington.
"You should know that this nation will not pull back even a needle's width from the path it is on," he said in a speech carried live on state television. "Why do you damage the agency's dignity because of America's invalid claims?" he said, apparently addressing members of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Agency chief Yukiya Amano is "playing a very dangerous game," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the agency, told Reuters Television.
However, France wants to bring together members of the UN Security Council in light of the report. "Convening of the UN Security Council is called for," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told RFI radio, adding that pressure needed to be ramped up on Iran and that France was willing to go further with sanctions.
"We cannot accept this situation which is a threat," said Mr Juppe.
The report immediately exposed splits among the big powers about how best to handle the row over Iran's nuclear aims: the United States signalled tougher sanctions on Tehran, but Russia said the report could hurt chances for diplomacy.
The United States may impose more sanctions on Iran, possibly on commercial banks or front companies, but is unlikely to take further steps against its oil and gas industry or go after the central bank for now, a US official said yesterday.
Russia criticised the report, saying it would dim hopes for dialogue with Tehran on its nuclear ambitions and suggesting it was meant to scuttle chances for a diplomatic solution.
"We have serious doubts about the justification for steps to reveal contents of the report to a broad public, primarily because it is precisely now that certain chances for the renewal of dialogue between the 'sextet' of international mediators and Tehran have begun to appear," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Russia and the United States are among the six big powers - also including China, Britain, France and Germany - which have been involved in stalled attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear dispute with Iran.
Tehran's history of hiding sensitive nuclear activity from the IAEA, continued restrictions on IAEA access and its refusal to suspend enrichment, which can yield fuel for atom bombs, have drawn four rounds of UN sanctions and separate punitive steps by the United States and European Union.
Reuters