Iran pushes ahead with nuclear plant that worries West

Reuters: Iran is pressing ahead with the construction of a research reactor that Western experts say could eventually produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon if Tehran decides to make one, a UN report showed on Wednesday.

In another development likely to worry the United States and its allies, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had added to its capacity to refine uranium, which can also provide the fissile core of a bomb if enriched to a high level.

The IAEA also said Iran had asphalted a part of a military site, Parchin, that the UN agency wants to visit.

That will fuel Western suspicions that Tehran is trying to remove traces of possible nuclear arms-related experiments there, perhaps a decade ago, something Iran denies.

It would now probably be “very difficult” for UN inspectors to find any traces at Parchin even if they were allowed access, which Iran has so far refused, one diplomat familiar with the country’s nuclear program said. The quarterly IAEA report was issued amid apparent deadlock in diplomatic efforts to resolve a decade-old dispute that threatens to trigger a new war in the Middle East.

Washington said Iran was “advancing its enrichment programme in blatant violation of its international obligations”.

“This report marks an unfortunate milestone with regard to Iran’s illicit nuclear activities,” US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. Iran denies accusations that it is seeking the capability to make nuclear weapons, saying it needs nuclear technology for energy and medical purposes and that it is Israel’s arsenal that threatens peace.