'Iran worked on long-range nuke missile'

Senior US envoy calls new IAEA presentation "compelling;" Iranian official: Material fabricated.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
iaea 224 (photo credit: AP [file])
iaea 224
(photo credit: AP [file])
The UN nuclear monitoring agency on Tuesday shared intelligence purporting to show that Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload, according to diplomats who attended the meeting. Responding to the presentation to the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a senior US envoy said the information was compelling evidence of such work by the Islamic Republic. But his Iranian counterpart said the material shown was fabricated. Other diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the closed meeting's details, described the information presented as something in-between the American and Iranian standpoints. The briefing focused on an IAEA report circulated to the board members Monday that said Teheran stonewalled agency efforts to follow up on the alleged weapons program. The report also confirmed that Tehran was expanding its uranium enrichment activities - which can make either nuclear fuel or warhead payloads - despite three sets of UN Security Council sanctions. Part of the report spoke of what appeared to be drawings and calculations by Iranian engineers on reconfiguring its Shahab-3 missile to be able to carry a nuclear payload, and the presentation Tuesday went into greater detail on that issue, the diplomats said. Iranian officials say the new missile has a range of 1,250 miles - more than 2,000 kilometers - which would enable a strike on Israel and most of the Middle East. The presentation "showed board members for the first time photographs and documents of work undertaken in Iran on the redesigning of the Shahab-3 missile to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon," said Gregory L. Schulte, the chief US representative to the IAEA. He said the senior IAEA official doing the briefing "told us that information they have is very credible." But Schulte's Iranian counterpart said the meeting was told that the material shown could not verified. "We have given clear information ... (on) why this material is fabricated," Ali Ashgar Soltanieh told reporters. He called for "an end to this endless process" of probing Iran for evidence of an arms program he said never existed, saying his country considered the investigation closed. A diplomat from a third country inside the meeting told The Associated Press that board members were told "the information is credible but cannot be verified." Another said that while the information was compelling, most of it was known and what was new in the presentation "appeared to be only a few new photos and diagrams." In Washington, the State Department said it would host a meeting of top negotiators from the five UN Security Council countries and Germany on Friday to discuss how to proceed in wake of Monday's IAEA report, which was also sent to the council. Officials said the meeting would be held to prepare for a gathering of the six foreign ministers expected next week on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly session in New York. The US and its Western allies would like to see Iran hit with new UN sanctions for its nuclear defiance, but Moscow and Beijing have traditionally been opposed to harsh Security Council action. China said Tuesday that imposing further penalties will not resolve the nuclear impasse. Still, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe spoke Monday of "the possibility of new sanctions." And on Tuesday, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told reporters that Paris had "no other choice than to work in the days and weeks to come toward a new Security Council sanctions resolution." The US and its allies allege that Iran wants to develop its uranium enrichment program to make nuclear weapons. But oil-rich Iran insists it only wants to make nuclear energy, and IAEA oversight and inspections of its known enrichment program has not found any evidence that contradicts that.