Iran Challenges U.S. to Prove Nuclear Bomb Charge.

“If the Americans have any claims or information they should hand it over to the (U.N. nuclear watchdog) agency, but it’s clear they have nothing,” Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in Tehran.

Kenneth Brill, U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other U.N. organizations in Vienna, said the IAEA’s latest report on Iran showed Tehran was trying to cover up a military atomic bomb program. “I think that this persistent refusal to fully cooperate (with IAEA inspectors) fits a long-term pattern of denial and deception that can only be designed to mask Iran’s military nuclear program,” Brill told reporters. …

The confidential IAEA report, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, said there were two major issues to be resolved. The first was the origin of enriched uranium traces found at sites in Iran that some diplomats on the IAEA board say raised concerns Tehran was secretly enriching uranium for use in arms. The second was Iran’s centrifuge program, especially its interest in advanced P2 enrichment centrifuges capable of making bomb-grade uranium. The report said Iran had admitted importing P2 parts and may have had interest in parts for thousands of centrifuges — contrary to what Tehran had previously said.

“Unanswered questions continue to be the hallmark of Iranian cooperation with the (IAEA),” said Brill.

“The more the IAEA digs, the more problems it finds. It is equally clear that the IAEA is not buying Iranian explanations on the key questions and that the list of outstanding issues is larger than it was in March,” he said.

But Rohani said the IAEA had only minor concerns about Iran and would soon be able to reassure the world Tehran had no atomic arms ambitions. Non-proliferation analysts and diplomats close to the IAEA said, however, the concerns were not minor.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told NATO parliamentarians on Tuesday he could not rule out that Iran’s nuclear program was linked to a military weapons program. [No matter how hard he tries. —ed.]