Iran says it gave answers to UN atomic watchdog

TEHRAN: Iran on Wednesday said it supplied the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog with documents explaining the discovery of suspect enriched uranium traces, state media reported, the first acknowledgement from Tehran that it had answered the agency’s long-standing demands.

The head of Iran’s civilian Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Eslami, said Iran sent the requested explanations on March 20 about several former undeclared sites in Iran where there was evidence of past nuclear activity.

The deadline came as part of an agreement announced last month to resolve the problem of undeclared uranium particles in Iran by June — long a source of tension between Tehran and the UN atomic watchdog.

The thorny issue is separate from now-stalled talks to revive Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which collapsed four years ago when former president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord and imposed crushing sanctions on Iran.

In the meantime, Iran has vastly expanded its nuclear work. As the fate of a renewed nuclear deal hangs in the balance, long-sought answers about Iran’s old but undeclared nuclear sites would improve trust and solve a major sticking point in its negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Eslami told reporters that Iran had handed over documents to the UN watchdog about the three requested sites in Iran, without elaborating. He expected agency inspectors to visit Iran “to review the answers” and finish a report on the subject by late June, he added. The Vienna-based IAEA declined to comment on Eslami’s remarks.