The UN nuclear watchdog says it is becoming “increasingly concerned” about an underground uranium enrichment plant at Isfahan that Iran declared last year but has not allowed any inspections.
“The agency does not know IFEP's [Isfahan Fuel Enrichment Plant] exact location, status for safeguards purposes or whether it contains nuclear material,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a confidential report.
The agency was unable to determine whether any nuclear material had been diverted from peaceful activities, according to the 13-page document circulated in Vienna on Friday.
Agency monitors have been barred from viewing Iran's uranium enrichment sites since the US and Israel conducted joint strikes in June last year. US President Donald Trump said Iran's nuclear programme was “obliterated” by those strikes. However, it is not clear what happened to the more than 400kg of near weapons-grade enriched uranium that the agency estimates Iran had produced before the attacks.
“It is more than a year since the agency lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the previously declared inventories of highly enriched uranium,” its Director General Rafael Grossi wrote in the report, which was seen by Bloomberg News. “The agency is not able to conclude that there has been no diversion of declared nuclear material from peaceful nuclear activities.”
Iran's national security chief Mohsen Rezaei said the country would not allow "a single particle” of enriched nuclear material to leave the country. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also asked the agency and the UN to condemn a US offer of a $20 million reward for information on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
The US State Department said the reward was for details on Iran's nuclear facilities, equipment and associated personnel, including scientists and their whereabouts.
Washington has said the nuclear issue must be part of any negotiations with Tehran aimed at ending the latest war launched by Israel and the US against Iran in February. Mr Trump listed the need to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons among the reasons for the renewed attacks.
