Iran admits it kept secrets from UN nuclear watchdog

Iran acknowledged yesterday having been discreet about its nuclear programme in the past but said it had no more secrets after giving the United Nations what it called a full declaration of all its nuclear activities.

The head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, delivered the declaration eight days ahead of an IAEA deadline for Iran to prove it has no secret atomic weapons programme as Washington alleges.

"I was assured that the report I got today is a comprehensive and accurate declaration," ElBaradei said.

"It is a large set of documents. We obviously have to start our verification activities (but) it is going to take us time to go through all these documents and reconstruct the full history of the programme," he said.

Salehi declined to give any details about the declaration, a stack of papers in a binder about one and half inches thick.

"We have submitted a report that fully discloses our past activities, peaceful activities, in the nuclear field," he said.

However, he said the secretive nature of some of Iran's activities - which has fuelled US concerns that Iran is covertly developing an atomic weapon - was a natural response to sanctions unfairly imposed on the Islamic republic.

"The important thing to note is that Iran had to do some of its activities very discreetly because of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran for the past 25 years," Salehi said, adding that they were "legal activities".

"Nevertheless (Iran) had to do them discreetly," he said. Submission of the report meets a key demand of the Vienna-based IAEA, which set the October 31 deadline.