http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5325324VIENNA (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday that Iran continues to cover up a nuclear weapons program and that the latest report by the U.N. atomic watchdog had only made this more apparent.
"I think that this persistent refusal to fully cooperate (with U.N. inspectors) fits a long-term pattern of denial and deception that can only be designed to mask Iran's military nuclear program," the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, Kenneth Brill, told reporters.
The United States accuses Iran of running a secret nuclear weapons program that is parallel to its declared atomic energy program. Iran denies this, insisting its ambitions are limited to the peaceful generation of electricity.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday in a confidential report on Iran, obtained by Reuters, there were two major issues it must resolve. First is the origin of enriched uranium traces found at sites in Iran, which some diplomats on the IAEA board say had raised concerns Iran was secretly enriching uranium for use in weapons.
The second is Iran's centrifuge program, especially its interest in advanced P2 enrichment centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium. The report said Iran had admitted importing P2 parts and may have had interest in parts for thousands of centrifuges -- contrary to what it had previously said.
"Unanswered questions continue to be the hallmark of Iranian cooperation with the (IAEA)," Brill said.
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