VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear agency said Friday it is “increasingly concerned” about a stream of intelligence suggesting that Iran continues to work secretly on developing a nuclear payload for a missile and other components of a nuclear-weapons program.
In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said “many member states” are providing evidence for that assessment, describing the information it is receiving as credible, “extensive and comprehensive.”
The restricted nine-page report was made available Friday to The Associated Press, shortly after being shared internally with the 35 IAEA member nations and the U.N. Security Council.
It also said Iran has fulfilled a pledge made earlier this year and started installing equipment to enrich uranium at a new location — an underground bunker that is better protected from air attack than its current enrichment facilities.
Enrichment can produce both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material, and Iran — which says it wants only to produce fuel with the technology — is under four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze enrichment.
The phrase “increasingly concerned” has not appeared in previous reports discussing Iran’s alleged nuclear-weapons work and reflects the frustration felt by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano over the lack of progress in his investigations.
