VIENNA — In a show-and-tell based on secret intelligence, the U.N. atomic agency shared satellite images, letters and diagrams with 35 nations Friday as it sought to underpin its case that Iran apparently worked secretly on developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency rejected the presentation as based on material fabricated by the United States and its allies.
“There is no indication and proof that Iran’s activities is toward military purposes,” he told reporters, in comments that those inside the closed meeting showing the evidence said essentially matched his statement to that gathering.
Western diplomats, in contrast, said the briefing was a convincing supplement to a report presented earlier this week.
Based on 1,000 pages of research and nearly a decade of probing Iran, that document included evidence that the agency says indicates the Islamic republic is working on the clandestine procurement of equipment and designs to make nuclear arms.
“While some of the activities identified in the annex have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons,” the report said.
Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, as well as computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead. The report also cited preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test, and development of a nuclear payload for Iran’s Shahab 3 intermediate range missile — a weapon that can reach Israel.
The report also implicated a “foreign expert” as helping Tehran on some of its alleged experiments, saying he worked on ways to set off a nuclear blast through a sophisticated multipoint explosives trigger.
But there are indications, not mentioned in the report, that the expert — identified by diplomats and media reports as former Soviet scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko — was even more deeply involved.
Ahead of Friday’s meeting, diplomats told The Associated Press that Danilenko’s son-in-law has told the agency Danilenko also helped Iran build a related project, a large steel chamber to contain the force of the blast set off by such explosives testing.
