Iran's nuclear activity under scrutiny as evidence of weapons threat emerges

A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog due to be circulated around the world next week will provide fresh evidence of a possible Iranian nuclear weapons program, bringing the Middle East a step closer to a devastating new conflict, say diplomats.

The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency is the latest of a series of quarterly bulletins on Iran's activities, but this one will contain an unprecedented level of detail on research and experiments carried out in Iran in recent years, which western officials allege could only be for the design and development of a nuclear warhead. "This will be a game-changer in the Iranian nuclear dossier," a western official predicted.

The key passage of the "safeguards report" will be a summary of all the evidence collected over the years by UN weapons inspectors, including a substantial amount of hitherto unpublished data pointing to work in the past seven years.

Western officials say Iranian work up to 2003 involved research and engineering, including the production of some prototype components of a warhead. From 2004, alarmed by the invasion of neighboring Iraq, those officials say Iranian technicians pursued only design work and computer modeling to reduce the chances of being detected.

Iran has consistently stated that its nuclear program is for peaceful means. In the report to be circulated among IAEA member states, probably on Wednesday or Thursday of next week, the agency's director-general is not expected to draw definitive conclusions, as the US, Britain and France had hoped. But his inspectors will draw attention to experimentation with few, if any, applications outside nuclear weaponry.

The report will almost certainly raise tensions in a region made volatile by last year's Arab revolutions and the turmoil in Syria. In the absence of a tough new UN Security Council resolution, the US will face the dilemma of acting militarily without an international mandate, or risk missing Iran's window of vulnerability to attack.

Russia: Israeli threat of strikes on Iran 'a mistake'

Military action against Iran would be a "very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences", Russia's foreign minister warned.

Sergei Lavrov said diplomacy, not missile strikes, was the only way to solve the Iranian nuclear problem.

His comments came after Israeli President Shimon Peres said an attack on Iran was becoming more likely.

The UN's atomic watchdog was expected to say that week that Iran was secretly developing a nuclear arms capability.

Diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report, due for release on Tuesday or Wednesday, would produce compelling evidence that Iran would find hard to dispute.

Iran had always insisted that its nuclear program was exclusively to generate power for civilian purposes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the alleged evidence was a fabrication and part of a multi-pronged US smear campaign against his country.

Mr. Lavrov said it was "far from the first time" Israel had threatened strikes against Iran, when asked for his view on Mr. Peres' recent comments.

"Our position on this issue is well-known: this would be a very serious mistake fraught with unpredictable consequences," he told reporters.

Mr. Lavrov said "the only path for removing concerns is to create every possible condition" to resume the talks between Iran and six world powers - including Russia - which broke down in December the previous year.

Shimon Peres said on Sunday: "The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option."

"I don't think that any decision has already been made, but there is an impression that Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons," he told the Israel Hayom daily.

He made similar comments to Israeli television on Saturday, saying: "I estimate that intelligence services of all these countries are looking at the ticking clock, warning leaders that there was not much time left.

Diplomats, speaking anonymously, have been briefing journalists on the IAEA's next quarterly report on Iran.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 789