UN finds more weapons-grade uranium in Iran

The UN nuclear watchdog has found traces of arms-grade enriched uranium at a second site in Iran, a month before a UN deadline for Tehran to prove it has no secret atomic weapons programme, diplomats said yesterday.

One diplomat told Reuters the discovery could support Tehran's explanation that the discovery of highly enriched uranium at a previous site in Iran was due to contamination from imported components.

But several other diplomats said it could support the US theory that Iran has been secretly purifying uranium for use in a nuclear explosive device - a charge Tehran denies.

Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the diplomats said the new traces of enriched uranium were found in environmental samples taken during inspections at the Kalaye Electric Company on the southern outskirts of Tehran. Earlier this year, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) found traces of enriched uranium at a plant at Natanz, some 250 kilometres south of the Iranian capital.

The IAEA finding at Natanz was a surprise, since Iran had insisted that its enrichment centrifuges were never tested live - that is, with nuclear material. Also, Iran has always said it only wants to produce low-enriched uranium, unusable in bombs.

Tehran, which says its nuclear programme is peaceful, blames the earlier find at Natanz on machinery which it says was contaminated with enriched uranium when it was purchased abroad on the black market in the 1980s. This explanation has met with scepticism inside and outside the IAEA.