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VIENNA – Iran agreed Sunday to provide additional information sought by the U.N. nuclear agency in its long-stalled probe of suspicions Tehran may have worked on nuclear weapons.
Iran insists it never worked – or wanted – such arms, and the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency was pushing ahead with its investigation with expectations Tehran would continue to assert all of its activities it is ready to reveal were meant for peaceful nuclear use.
Still, the IAEA’s announcement Tehran was ready to “provide information and explanations” for experiments in a type of detonator that the agency says could be used to trigger a nuclear explosion appeared to be the latest indication Iran’s new political leadership is seeking to ease tensions over its nuclear program.
The agency mentioned its concerns about detonator development three years ago as part of a list of activities it said could indicate Tehran had secretly worked on nuclear weapons. The technology had “limited civilian and conventional military applications,” it said back then, adding: “given their possible application in a nuclear explosive device ... Iran development of such detonators and equipment is a matter of concern.”
Nuclear physicist Yousaf Butt welcomed the agreement as a “positive development. “At the same time, Butt, who often questions the methods and conclusions of the IAEA probe, said such detonators are commonly used in oil extraction and related work. As such, he said, experiments with them should not be surprising in oil-rich Iran.
But David Albright, whose Institute for Science and International Security is often consulted by the U.S. government on proliferation issues, said the concession by Iran could “crack open the door” and lead to a resolution of the allegations that it worked clandestinely on atomic arms.
The detonator issue was not on top of the list of the 2011 IAEA report of possible nuclear-weapons concerns, with the agency mentioning other suspected activities it said appeared to have had no civilian applications.
As the two sides met over the weekend in Tehran, diplomats told The Associated Press Iran now was ready to address agency questions about its suspected nuclear-weapons work after years of dismissing the issue as based on fabricated U.S. and Israeli evidence.
But they also said the process would get underway only slowly. The fact the Iranians were ready to engage on the detonator issue first reflected caution by both sides after more than six years of stalemate on the probe, with the agency focused on a step-by-step approach, starting with less sensitive issues and progressing to the arms-related queries.
