Iran Dismisses Reports it May be Enriching Uranium
VOA News
19 Jul 2003, 14:07 UTC
Iran has dismissed as "suspicious and vague" reports in the western news media that U.N. inspectors had found traces of enriched uranium in samples taken from an Iranian nuclear facility. News reports quote unnamed diplomats as saying the traces were found in environmental samples taken at a nuclear facility in Natanz, in central Iran.
The reports says if the testing proves true, it could mean Tehran has been enriching uranium without informing the nuclear watchdog IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
An Iranian spokesman quoted by the official Iranian news agency describes the reports as "forged news" and said it expects the matter to be cleared up in talks with the IAEA. The spokesman noted that the facility is under IAEA safeguards and supervision.
State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, said Friday the United States expects a full report on the test results, hopefully in advance of the IAEA's next scheduled meeting in September.
The spokesman added the Bush administration has long been concerned that Iran has been operating a secret nuclear weapons program. A spokeswoman for the IAEA says it is too early to judge the significance of the test results. She added the agency is in the middle of a complex inspection in Iran, and is investigating what she calls "a number of unresolved issues."
Some information for this report provided by Reuters.
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