VIENNA, 3 March 2005 — Iran must come clean on nuclear questions, UN atomic agency chief Mohamed El-Baradei said yesterday. El-Baradei, whose International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating Iran for possible nuclear weapons work, said Tehran must carry out “transparency” measures that allow widespread visits by IAEA inspectors beyond what is required under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“The ball is very much in Iran’s court to come clean through absolute transparency measures and cooperation with the agency,” he said. He was speaking the day after a report by IAEA Deputy Director Pierre Goldschmidt outlining key areas where he said Iran was refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors. These include blocking a follow-up visit to the Parchin military facility where Washington charges Tehran is simulating testing of nuclear weapons.

Parchin is not a site where there are definitely nuclear materials, and tracing nuclear materials is the IAEA mandate from the NPT. But El-Baradei said that Iran was a “special case” since its nuclear program “has been clandestine for almost two decades and it is difficult that we can come to a conclusion (about weapons work) and provide assurance without full cooperation, full openness, full transparency on the part of Iran.”

El-Baradei said going back to sites would be “redundancy visits” to rule out that material has been diverted from peaceful use and that this would be a way of creating “the necessary confidence.” “If I say there are three more important things Iran needs to do, I should say transparency, transparency and more transparency,” El-Baradei said. He said this would help in talks Iran is having with the European Union on incentives for the Islamic Republic since with “more confidence” about Tehran’s past nuclear program, the easier it will be “to focus on the future normalization of relations in the areas of economic relations, trade technology and security.”

Meanwhile, citing “an alarming number” of unresolved questions about Iran’s nuclear program, the United States warned yesterday that the UN atomic agency cannot put off “forever” taking Tehran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

US Ambassador Jackie Sanders told the IAEA that Iran has continued to deny IAEA inspectors “the transparency and cooperation they need to perform their duties” and that Tehran was “cynically” manipulating “the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Sanders, who is based in Geneva but heads the US delegation to the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors meeting in Vienna this week, said the IAEA cannot put off “forever” bringing Iran before the Security Council, as the United States wants. Washington has been calling for almost two years for Iran to be taken to the Council, as it says Tehran is in clear violation of the NPT. “The board cannot ignore forever its statutory responsibility to report this matter” to the Council, Sanders said, according to a text of her comments made available to the press. The Security Council would have “the authority to require that Iran take all necessary corrective measures, including those steps called for by the (IAEA) board that Iran has failed to take,” Sanders said.

She said these included “the authority to require and enforce a suspension of Iran’s enrichment-related and reprocessing activities,” which make what can be fuel for reactors or in highly refined form the explosive core of atomic bombs. Sanders said El-Baradei should report to the agency’s board ahead of its next meeting in June, after not having reported to the current meeting, as this would clear the way for action against Iran if necessary.

The head of the Iranian delegation, Cyrus Naseri, told reporters that the United States wanted to get the issue before the Security Council because it “might be in the driver’s seat there” while Washington was isolated at the IAEA. Naseri said Iran was not allowing a second visit to Parchin, after a first one in January, in part because it was concerned about information leaks “in view of potential threats of military strikes against safeguarded and other facilities visited by the agency in Iran.”

“The notions of threat of attacks against Iran’s safeguarded and other facilities by a major nuclear weapons state are still there,” Naseri said, in a clear reference to the United States.