Iran, UN inspectors find radioactive traces, raising new concerns

Last year, Iran prevented IAEA inspectors from checking the locations involved for seven months, leading to an impasse. Tehran has long denied that it tried to make an atomic bomb and said that all of its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes, such as power generation and health. There were no immediate comments from Iran on the findings.

In Washington, White House and State Department officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In recent months, Iran has stepped up its nuclear activities, breaking many of the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal it sealed with the U.S., European powers, Russia and China. These measures began about a year after the Trump administration ended the agreement in May 2018 and then imposed extensive sanctions on Iran, which were suspended under the agreement.

It also threatened to restrict access by IAEA inspectors to sites from the end of this month. These measures have caused growing concern in Washington about Iran’s nuclear intentions.

American and Israeli officials said Iran’s retention of nuclear material, equipment and information, contained in a nuclear archive invaded by Israel in 2018, shows that the country plans to accelerate its work with nuclear weapons again.

The IAEA listed in a June report the issues it was asking Iran to clarify on a series of jobs that could be used for nuclear weapons. One suspicion was the Iranian drilling of a metallic uranium disk 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 into a location where Iran may have tested high explosives that could be used to detonate a nuclear weapon.

The agency is also asking Iran about another undeclared location where the uranium conversion and illicit processing may have occurred.

All suspicious activity occurred in early 2000 or earlier, according to the agency. Two of the sites were razed years ago. Another site was cleaned by Iran in 2019, the IAEA reported. The IAEA said it has not ruled out that materials from this nuclear work have been used more recently.

“The discovery of radioactive material in these locations would indicate that Iran does indeed have undeclared nuclear material, despite its denials,” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector and president of the Institute of Science and International Security in Washington. “This would indicate that Iran has had a nuclear weapons program in the past, probably prompting the IAEA to request access to more places and more explanation from Iran.”

The IAEA said in 2015 that it thought Iran had a structured nuclear weapons program until 2003 and continued some activities after that. Washington and the European powers came to similar conclusions.

The IAEA has yet to report the latest findings to member states, diplomats said. He is currently asking Iran to provide an explanation for the material, one said, standard practice. The agency declined to comment on the new findings.

The IAEA previously said it found several undeclared uranium particles, including enriched uranium, at a separate secret location in Tehran in 2019, which is believed to be a depository for nuclear equipment. It was this discovery that led the agency to seek access to other locations in Iran.

The United States, European powers and others have asked Iran to fully cooperate with the agency’s investigation into the country’s nuclear activities.

Tensions have increased in the past 18 months with the IAEA’s investigation into undeclared material. The core function of the IAEA is to safeguard nuclear material used for civilian purposes and to ensure that it is not diverted to nuclear weapons. Iran must declare all nuclear material in the country under its international obligations.

Last year, IAEA board member states voted to censor Iran for not cooperating. Iran rejected the measure as unfair pressure and was supported by Russia and China.

Iran says the IAEA investigation is based on fabricated Israeli information and has pressured the agency to complete its work quickly. Iran’s threat to restrict access by IAEA inspectors to sites later this month if the United States does not lift sanctions on Tehran could limit the agency’s ability to deepen the investigation.

After the IAEA requested access to the two sites in January 2020, Iran repeatedly refused, until the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Grossi, traveled to Tehran in August and struck a deal. Inspectors collected samples at both locations and performed an additional inspection at another location shortly thereafter.

While the samples were being tested in laboratories, Grossi increased pressure on Iran to adequately explain the presence of the uranium particles found at the Tehran site in 2019.

Grossi promised to continue the IAEA investigation until Iran accounts for all undeclared material. In November, he described Iran’s explanations for the uranium particles found at a site in Tehran as “technically unreliable” and said that Iran needs to account for the material “completely and promptly”. Iran said it is cooperating with the agency.

Write to Laurence Norman at [email protected]