VIENNA, 4 March 2005 — The 35 nations on the UN nuclear watchdog’s board urged Iran yesterday to step up cooperation with UN inspectors and backed a European Union offer of incentives if Tehran ends sensitive nuclear work.

Earlier this week, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed El-Baradei, said that by concealing parts of its nuclear program for nearly two decades Iran had created a “confidence deficit” and urged Tehran to improve its transparency and cooperation with UN inspectors.

A conclusion of this week’s IAEA governing board meeting issued by its Canadian chairwoman said the 35 member states unanimously said it was “essential that Iran provide full transparency and extend proactive cooperation to the agency.”

The conclusion also said: “Support was expressed for the negotiations currently being undertaken between Iran, France, Germany and the UK ... and (the board) expressed the hope that an agreement would be reached on long-term arrangements.”

The European Union’s “big three” states have offered Iran a package of economic and political incentives if it abandons its uranium enrichment program, which could produce fuel for nuclear power plants or atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, according to diplomats, Iran is pouring the concrete foundation for a heavy-water nuclear reactor which can make weapons-grade plutonium and which the UN atomic agency had asked it not to build.

The work at a 40-megawatt reactor at Arak, southwest of Tehran, began in September, just after the UN atomic agency had asked Iran to refrain from building the reactor as a “confidence-building measure,” a diplomat, who asked not to be named told AFP.

IAEA Deputy Director Pierre Goldschmidt said Tuesday that Iran was pressing ahead with work on the Arak reactor but he gave no details on how far the work had progressed.

Goldschmidt said IAEA inspectors had not visited the site since the agency’s board of governors adopted the resolution on Sept. 18 calling on Iran “voluntarily to reconsider its decision to start construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water.”