IAEA confirms Iran’s report about new nuclear plant

In a report released on Monday the UN atomic watchdog announced that Iran’s new nuclear plant being built in Fordo, which is near the holy city of Qom, “corresponds to the design information provided by Iran.”

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency said, “Iran’s explanation about the purpose of the facility and the chronology of its design and construction requires further clarification,” according to AFP.

In a letter to the IAEA in September Iran revealed that it was building the second uranium enrichment plant which should be operational by 2011.

In its first official report since IAEA experts inspected the Qom site last month, the watchdog said that Tehran’s delay in disclosure “does not contribute to the building of confidence.”

Iran said the site was planned as a back-up plant should the Natanz plant be bombed, for example, and work on turning it into such a facility began in the second half of 2007.

Even if that was true, the IAEA stated: “Iran’s failure to notify the agency of the new facility until September 2009 was inconsistent with its obligations.”

During the visit to the Qom site last month, IAEA inspectors verified that the plant “was built to contain 16 cascades with a total of approximately 3,000 (uranium-enriching) centrifuges,” the report stated.

No centrifuges had been installed in Qom, but the plant was “at an advanced stage of construction,” the IAEA said, adding that Iran gave the inspectors “access to all areas of the facility.”

The IAEA said it has told Iran that it still has “questions about the purpose for which the facility had been intended and how it fit into Iran’s nuclear program.”

The IAEA declared that Iran is still refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment activities.

So far, Tehran has amassed 1,763 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (LEU) at Natanz, an increase of 255 kilograms from the time of the IAEA’s last report at end-August, inspectors found.

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