IAEA sees risk Iran hiding more nuclear activity

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is concerned that Iran's belated revelation of a new uranium enrichment site may mean it is hiding further nuclear activity, an agency report said Monday.

The report said Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun building the plant within a bunker beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom in 2007, but the IAEA had evidence the project had begun in 2002.

Iran reported its existence to the IAEA in September after, Western diplomats said at the time, learning that U.S., French and British spy services had discovered it.

IAEA inspectors admitted on October 26-27 to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Site found construction well advanced. Iran told the Vienna-based 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.

"(The IAEA wrote to Iran on November 6) asking for a clear statement on whether they have similar facilities they have decided to build or are building, or have built. The IAEA has not got an explicit answer as of this morning," said a senior international official familiar with the inquiry.

Iran says the site, like the rest of its nuclear program, is meant only to yield fuel for civilian energy 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 United States said the report showed Iran was not fully in compliance with its nuclear obligations and Washington would keep pressing the issue.

"Now is the time for Iran to signal that it wants to be a responsible member of the international community. We will continue to press Iran ... to meet its international nuclear obligations," U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Iran told the IAEA the Fordow site was hatched as a fallback to preserve its declared civilian enrichment program if the far larger Natanz complex, under IAEA monitoring since 2002, was bombed by enemies such as Israel.

Western diplomats and nuclear experts say Fordow's planned capacity -- 3,000 centrifuges -- makes no sense as a stand-alone civilian enrichment center since it would be too small to fuel a nuclear power station around the clock. But it could make enough fissile material for one or two atomic bombs per year, they say.

CIVILIAN PURPOSE UNLIKELY

"It goes without saying the Fordow site will not be able to cover the needs of (a power plant). With 3,000 machines, you'd need 9-10 installations of this size," said the senior international official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

One angle of IAEA checks into how the Fordow site could have been viable by itself was whether there was any hidden activity to convert uranium ore into feedstock for enrichment. Iran's Isfahan conversion center is under IAEA surveillance.