Iran making nuclear weapons, secretly?

Agencies | Geneva

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Raising fresh concerns, new evidence of undeclared nuclear activities have emerged from Iran.

United Nations inspectors said they had found evidence of Iran’s relentless pursuit of nuclear ambitions.

Samples taken from two sites during inspections in the fall by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency contained traces of radioactive material,

Wall Street Journal said quoting three diplomats.

Diplomats told WSJ that could indicate Iran has undertaken work on nuclear weapons, based on where they found the traces.

The diplomats said they didn’t know the exact nature of what was found.

Tehran has long denied that it has sought to make an atomic bomb and said all of its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as power generation and health care.

However, last year, Iran blocked IAEA inspectors from checking the sites involved for seven months, leading to a standoff.

In recent months, Iran has scaled up its nuclear activities, breaching many of the limits in the 2015 nuclear agreement it sealed with the US, European powers, Russia and China.

US and Israeli officials have said Iran’s retention of nuclear material, equipment and information, contained in a nuclear archive raided by Israel in 2018, show the country plans to rev up its nuclear weapons work again.

The IAEA listed in a report in June questions it was asking Iran to clarify on a range of work that could be used for nuclear weapons.

One suspicion was Iranian drilling of a uranium metal disc that could be used to create material for a neutron initiator, experts say, a key component of a nuclear weapon.

A second suspicion was that nuclear material had been introduced at a site where Iran may have tested high explosives that can be used to detonate a nuclear weapon.

The agency is also asking Iran about another undeclared site where illicit uranium conversion and processing may have taken place, it said.

All the suspected activities took place in the early 2000s or earlier, according to the agency.

Two of the sites were razed years ago.

Another site was sanitized by Iran in 2019, the IAEA reported.