Iran's excuses 'not credible' over presence of nuclear material, UN regulator says

UNITED NATIONS -- Tehran's explanations of the presence of nuclear material at an undeclared site in the country are "not credible", said the United Nations (UN) nuclear watchdog Wednesday (November 11).

Despite Iranian authorities providing some information about the site, "the agency informed Iran that it continues to consider Iran's response to be not technically credible," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report seen by AFP.

"A full and prompt explanation from Iran regarding the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin... at a location in Iran not declared to the agency is needed," the report said.

While the IAEA has not identified the site in question, diplomatic sources have indicated to AFP that it is in Turquzabad District of Tehran, previously identified by Israel as an alleged site of secret atomic activity.

There is no indication the site has been used for processing uranium, but it could have been used for storing it as late as the end of 2018, said a source familiar with the issue.

The report did not provide any new information about two separate locations where the IAEA took samples in September and where undeclared nuclear activity may have taken place in the early 2000s.

Analysis of those samples is proceeding.

However, it confirmed that the Iranian regime's stockpile of enriched uranium is now more than 12 times the limit set in a 2015 deal with world powers, even if the rate at which the stockpile is expanding has slowed since the last report.

Iranian violations

The accord aimed to restrict Tehran's nuclear ambitions -- which Western powers feared were aimed at developing atomic weapons -- in return for sanctions relief.

The 2015 pact has been progressively unravelling since the United States withdrew from the deal.

Tehran has been breaking the limits on its nuclear activity laid down in the deal since May 2019, and its blatant defiance to stop its pursuit of further uranium enrichment has spurred worldwide condemnation.

In January of this year, three European Union countries launched a dispute mechanism under the 2015 nuclear deal with the Iranian regime after accusing Tehran of repeated violations.

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany accused Tehran of progressively scaling back its commitments under the deal and defying key restrictions on its nuclear programme.

As well as breaching limits on the stockpile amount and enrichment level of uranium laid down in the 2015 deal, the Iranian regime has been using more advanced centrifuges than permitted under the deal.

The Iranian regime in January 2020 already said it would abandon its nuclear commitments and forego the "limit on the number of centrifuges".

The November 11 report confirmed that, in line with those statements by Tehran, workers had installed centrifuges at an underground part of the Natanz nuclear facility after another part of the site was damaged in an explosion in July that Tehran blamed on "sabotage".