Secrecy raises fears of more Iran atom sites: IAEA

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is concerned that Iran's belated revelation of a new uranium enrichment site may mean it is hiding other nuclear facilities, an agency report obtained by Reuters said on Monday.                                           

The report said Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had begun building the bunkered site near Qom in 2007, but the IAEA had evidence that the project had begun in 2002. Iran reported its existence to the IAEA in September.

IAEA inspectors who were admitted last month to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Site found construction well advanced. Iran told the agency it would be started up in 2011.                                           

"The agency has indicated (to Iran) that its declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities not declared to the agency," the report said.                                           

Iran says the site, like the rest of its nuclear programme, is meant only to yield fuel for civilian power plants.

Diplomats say the site's small size makes it unsuitable for any purpose but to enrich lower quantities of uranium suitable for a bomb, and the IAEA said Iran still had a number of questions to answer about the site's chronology and purpose.                                           

The report does not address the immediate focus of nuclear diplomacy with Iran, a confidence-building plan brokered by the IAEA in which Iran would send low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for conversion into fuel for a Tehran medical reactor.                                           

World powers intend that confidence-building plan to be a precursor to talks on their main worry -- that Iran's nuclear programme is intended to produce nuclear weapons. Iran has yet to give a clear answer and has pressed for amendments to the deal and more negotiations.                                           

US president Barack Obama said on Sunday time was running out for diplomacy, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after meeting him that Moscow was not completely happy about the pace of dialogue on the issue.                                           

Russia on Monday announced a new delay to Iran's first nuclear power station, saying technical issues would prevent its engineers from starting the Bushehr reactor by the end of 2010. Energy minister Sergei Shmatko said politics had nothing to do with the decision.                                           

However, diplomats say Russia uses Bushehr as a lever in relations with Tehran, and the United States has been urging Russia to put pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday restated Iran's position that its nuclear rights are not negotiable, the student news agency ISNA reported. 

Russia started deliveries of nuclear fuel for Bushehr in late 2007, a step both Washington and Moscow said removed any need for Iran, the world's fourth biggest crude oil producer, to have its own uranium enrichment programme. Russia says Bushehr cannot be used for any weapons programme as it will run under IAEA supervision and Iran will have to return all spent fuel rods to Russia.