The U.N. nuclear watchdog has not yet given good enough reasons to visit an Iranian site where it suspects there may have been experiments for developing nuclear weapons, Iranian media said.

The Parchin complex is at the centre of Western suspicions that Iran is developing atom bombs despite Tehran’s repeated denials of any such ambition. A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week said satellite images showed “extensive activities” at Parchin.

Iranian officials have refused access to the complex, southeast of Tehran, saying it is a military site.

“The reasons and document have still not been presented by the agency to convince us to give permission for this visit,” the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency on Saturday.

Six world powers failed to convince Iran last week to halt its most sensitive nuclear work, but they will meet again in Moscow next month to try to end a standoff that has raised fears of a new war that could threaten global oil supplies.

Last November, an IAEA report found that Iran had built a large containment vessel in 2000 at Parchin in which to conduct tests that the agency said were “strong indicators of possible weapon development.”

In last week’s report, the IAEA did not elaborate on what activities it believed were happening there, but Western diplomats suspect Iran is trying to remove any potentially incriminating evidence. Tehran rejects this charge.

INSPECTION HOPES

After a visit to Tehran last week, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said he was close to an agreement with Iran on inspection visits to nuclear facilities but some differences remained.

The US-based Institute for Science and International Security thinktank has said there is concern Iran may be trying to cleanse the building at Parchin – possibly by grinding down surfaces, collecting the dust and washing the area thoroughly.

Referring to the Baghdad talks with world powers, Abbasi-Davani dismissed pressure for an end to high-grade uranium enrichment as “predictable”.

Iran has begun enriching uranium to 20 percent fissile purity, saying that is needed for a medical research reactor, but worrying Western countries who see it as a big step towards the 90 percent purity needed for weapons-grade uranium.

“There is no reason for us to give up enriching uranium to 20 percent because we produce this fuel only to meet our needs, no more and no less,” the ISNA news agency quoted Abbasi-Davani as saying.

Tehran says it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium, but has sometimes indicated it may be flexible when it comes to higher grade uranium enrichment.

Iran has expanded enrichment at its Fordow nuclear facility, buried deep beneath rock and soil to protect it from air strikes.

Last week’s IAEA report said nuclear engineers had installed 50 percent more enrichment centrifuges at Fordow. Although not yet being fed with uranium, the new machines could be used to further boost Iran’s output of uranium enriched to 20 percent. (Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

Source: Freedom messenger

Investigators working in four countries have amassed new evidence linking attempts to assassinate officials and businessmen to either Iran-backed Hezbollah or Iran-based operatives, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Citing unnamed US and Middle Eastern security officials, the newspaper said the evidence included phone records, forensic tests, coordinated travel arrangements and even cellphone SIM cards purchased in Iran and used by several of the would-be assailants.

Last year, Azerbaijan uncovered a plot to kill US Embassy employees or members of their families.

But the plot was apparently just one of many. Iranian-backed operatives have been linked to attempts to kill foreign diplomats in at least seven countries over a span of 13 months, the paper said.

The targets have included two Saudi officials, a half-dozen Israelis and — in the Azerbaijan case — several Americans, according to the report.

Strikingly the attempts halted abruptly in early spring, at a time when Iran began to shift its tone after weeks of bellicose anti-Western rhetoric and threats to shut down vital shipping lanes, The Post said.

In March, Iranian officials formally accepted a proposal to resume negotiations with six world powers on proposals to curb its nuclear program.

“There appears to have been a deliberate attempt to calm things down ahead of the talks,” the paper quotes an unnamed Western diplomat as saying. “What happens if the talks fail — that’s anyone’s guess.”

It is unknown whether the attempts were ordered by Iranian government officials or carried out with the authorities’ tacit approval by a proxy group such as Hezbollah, The Post noted.

Many US officials and Middle East experts see the incidents as part of an ongoing shadow war, a multi-sided, covert struggle, in which Iran also has been the victim of assassinations, the report said.

Four scientists tied to Iran’s nuclear program have been killed by unknown assailants in the past three years, and the country’s nuclear sites have been hobbled by cyberattacks, the paper noted.

Source: France24

Iran is to build a new nuclear power plant, alongside its sole existing one in the southern city of Bushehr, by early 2014, according to the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organisation.