Samples taken by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at an Iranian ‘atomic warehouse’ in Tehran, showed traces of uranium that Iran has yet to explain, officials say.
The IAEA is investigating the particles’ origin and has asked Iran to explain the traces. Iran is reportedly refusing to answer the UN agency’s questions, which Iranian officials claim was used as a carpet cleaning facility.
In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly last September, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed that Iran had a “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran’s secret nuclear weapons programme”. He then urged the IAEA Chief to investigate.
Satellite photography of the site in question shows the facility being slowly emptied of numerous large containers between July and September 2018. The IAEA’s findings provide further evidence that Tehran was in violation of the nuclear deal from the moment it was signed.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran is now refusing to answer the agency’s questions about exactly what materials were stored in the warehouse, and crucially, where those materials are now. That same day, at a meeting of IAEA’s board governors in Vienna, the acting Director-General, Cornel Feruta, said “time was of the essence” for Iran to explain how uranium particles were found at the site.
