Iran weapons project 'continued'

Ali Asghar Soltanieh angrily rejected the documents as "forgeries"

The UN's nuclear watchdog has been told Iran may have continued secret work on nuclear weapons after 2003, the date US intelligence suggested the work ceased.

A US National Intelligence Estimate released last December said Tehran had frozen its atomic programme in 2003.

But documents presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggest the work continued.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, angrily dismissed the documentats as "forgeries".

Simon Smith, Britain's ambassador to the IAEA, said material presented to the IAEA in Vienna came from multiple sources and included designs for a nuclear warhead, plus information on how it would perform and how it would fit onto a missile.

"Certainly some of the dates that we were talking about... went beyond 2003," he said.

No credible assurances

The material was presented to the agency's 35-nation board by the IAEA's head of safeguards, Olli Heinonen, in a closed-door meeting on Monday.

The permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, UK, China, France and Russia - are meeting in Washington to discuss the possibility of imposing further sanctions on Iran over its disputed atomic programme.

The IAEA released a report on Friday which said Iran was being more transparent, but had not given "credible assurances" that it was not building a bomb.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that report bolstered a "very strong case" for a third round of sanctions over the disputed nuclear programme.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retorted that no amount of UN sanctions would deter Tehran from its nuclear path.

"If they want to continue with that path of sanctions, we will not be harmed. They can issue resolutions for 100 years," he said in a televised interview on Saturday.

Tehran insists its programme is aimed purely at generating electricity.

US will back new Iran sanctions

The US wants a new resolution on Iran agreed 'with some dispatch'

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said there is a "very strong case" for a third round of sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

She spoke as the UN nuclear agency said it could offer no "credible assurances" that Iran was not building a bomb.

UN Security Council members the US, UK, China, France and Russia meet on Monday in Washington to mull their next step.

But Iran's top nuclear negotiator said the UN report backed Tehran's claim its nuclear programme was peaceful.

Tehran refuses to stop enriching uranium, insisting its work is aimed purely at generating electricity.

Travel bans

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report did praise Iran for granting its inspectors access to previously off-limits sites, but said it remained evasive on key issues.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes

The nuclear watchdog struck a deal last August with Iran on a timetable to resolve questions over aspects of its past nuclear activities.

But Friday's report said Tehran had evaded a proper response to claims it had made secret efforts to "weaponise" nuclear material.

It had also ducked questions about alleged high explosives testing and design work on a missile warhead, the IAEA found, noting: "This is a matter of serious concern."

Iran was also still openly enriching uranium in defiance of UN resolutions and testing advanced centrifuges to speed up the process, said the inspectors.

The US secretary of state said: "This report demonstrates that whatever the Iranians may be doing to try to clean up some elements of the past, it is inadequate given their current activities.

"What we all have to worry about... is the future in which Iran could start to perfect the technologies that could lead to a nuclear weapon."

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told reporters: "This report showed that our activities are peaceful."

But BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the IAEA findings are definitely not a clean bill of health.

On Thursday, Britain and France introduced a UN Security Council resolution - a draft of which was approved last month - with support from the US, Russia, China and Germany.

It seeks to expand the number of Iranian companies targeted by sanctions and impose travel bans on certain Iranian officials.

A declassified US intelligence report last December judged that the Iranians had put a nuclear weapons program on hold in 2003.

But the US, Israel and others contend Iran's continued advances in the crucial centrifuge work will eventually give it a capability to build a bomb.

US warns India over nuclear pact

The senators warn that the situation is getting critical

A US delegation has warned India it must finalise a nuclear deal by July if Congress in Washington is to ratify it before presidential polls.

The civilian nuclear energy deal between the two countries has been delayed because of opposition from India's communist parties.

The parties provide key support to PM Manmohan Singh's minority government.

They argue that the accord would give the US undue influence over India's foreign and nuclear policy.

Under the terms of the deal, India would get access to US civil nuclear technology and fuel, in return for opening its civilian nuclear facilities to inspection.

But its nuclear weapons sites would remain off-limits.

The deal will also eventually need to be approved by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which regulates global civilian nuclear trade.

'Difficult to ratify'

The delegation of three US senators arrived in Delhi on a day-long visit after monitoring Pakistan's elections.

"Time is of the essence," Joseph Biden, one of the senators, said, urging India to confirm its support for the nuclear deal.

The left-wing parties have been protesting against the nuclear deal

The visiting Americans say the deal is running out of time because of the tight legislative agenda for 2008 ahead of November's US presidential elections.

"If we don't have the deal back with us clearly prior to the month of July, it will be very difficult to ratify," Mr Biden said.

Whatever the merits of the deal, passing it through Congress after July would be harder because of "the mechanics on which our system functions", he said.

Mr Biden also said it was "highly unlikely" the next president would be able to authorise the same deal, if it did not reach Congress in time.

"It will be renegotiated," Mr Biden said.

"It is critical, if India want that deal, they move on relatively soon, within a matter of weeks,'' he said.

Mr Biden and senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel met Prime Minister Singh on Wednesday to express their concerns over the issue.

India tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998 and consequently is banned from buying fuel for atomic reactors and related equipment.

The deal has already been pronounced dead by some analysts because of India's domestic political rivalries.

IAEA calls for N-free zone in ME

VIENNA, Sept 20: The UN atomic agency adopted a non-binding resolution on a nuclear weapons-free-zone in the Middle East with Israel and the US voting against and EU states except Ireland abstaining.

The lack of consensus weakened the impact of the measure, at a general conference of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), diplomats said.

The Egyptian-sponsored resolution was backed by 53 votes, with two against and 47 abstentions.

The IAEA has a tradition of adopting resolutions by consensus, but the Middle East issue has become highly politicised, even though Israel backs a nuclear weapons-free-zone (NWFZ) within the framework of a Middle East peace settlement.Some western and non-aligned diplomats said the problem this year was that Iran was agitating behind the scenes for a showdown over Israel, in order to distract from its own nuclear programme.

One western diplomat said the large abstention vote, which included Australia, Canada, Georgia, Ghana and Zambia, “shows that the world is hanging together on these matters.”But the Iranian speaker blasted the vote as putting into question the views of “some members that full-scope safeguards” need be complemented by wider inspection measures, as Israel, which has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) seemed to be exempt from this.

An Irish diplomat said his country had voted for the text since Ireland favoured a NWFZ in the Middle East. “It’s as simple as that,” the diplomat said.

The general conference approves broad policy lines for the 144-member IAEA, the verification arm of the NPT. But the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors makes decisions for the agency on how policy is implemented.

The contested resolution contained two new paragraphs that were added to past texts and which Israel felt expanded the scope of the resolution too much, diplomats said.The first called on “all states of the region, pending the establishment of the zone, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or permit the stationing on their territories ... of nuclear weapons.”