Iran rejects IAEA report concerns on nuclear program

Iran's representative in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Esgaroth Soltanieh, rejected claims of the report published by the organization, which received new information that increases the concern about the possibility that the regime in Tehran worked to develop nuclear weapons, The Jerusalem Post reports.

"The important point is that the full detailed report regarding all our nuclear activities show full supervision by the IAEA and no deviation to prohibited ends," Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted Soltanieh as saying. "For the 26th time, the IAEA confirmed the peaceful nature of our nuclear program," Soltanieh insisted.

An annex to the confidential IAEA report on Friday listed "the outstanding issues which give rise to concern about possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme." It included design work on a nuclear payload; experiments with explosives that could detonate such a payload and other work that could be linked to making weapons.

"Based on the agency's analysis of additional information since August 2008, including new information recently received, there are further concerns which the agency also needs to clarify with Iran," said the report, which was also sent to the UN Security Council.