TEHRAN (Iran), June 3: Iran''s atomic energy chief claimed on Thursday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog misunderstood the nature of the experiments at a Tehran laboratory mentioned in the agency''s latest report, reports AP.
The report underscored the West''s concerns about Iranian nuclear ambitions and came as the U.N. Security Council inches toward imposing a new round of sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend its nuclear enrichment.
Ali Akbar Salehi said the International Atomic Energy Agency''s report earlier this week made a "misinterpretation" in a reference about pyroprocessing - a procedure that can be used to purify uranium metal used in nuclear warheads.
Salehi, according to the semiofficial Isna news agency, said the Tehran lab experiments deal with uranium production, not pyroprocessing.
"The experiments have no relation to pyroprocessing," he said. "We believe the agency used this false report about a process that has not yet taken place, with the purpose of influencing public opinion."
Salehi stressed such "mistakes" would backfire and only damage IAEA''s reputation.
He added that the Tehran lab experiments sought to produce uranium metal from depleted uranium, which is an effective shield against harmful radiation. Salehi said Iran has plentiful stocks of depleted uranium but didn''t elaborate on the source of the material. In January, Iran told the IAEA it had carried out pyroprocessing experiments, prompting a request from the agency for more information - but then backtracked in March and denied conducting such activities.
IAEA experts last month revisited the site - the Jabr Ibn Jayan Multipurpose Research Laboratory in Tehran - only to establish "that the electrochemical cell had been removed" from the unit used in the experiments, according to the report.
Salehi said this was "not correct" and that Iran did not remove any equipment from the lab. He didn''t elaborate but Isna quoted him as saying Iran would provide the IAEA with evidence at an unspecified later date.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iranian''s envoy to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna already criticized the report in comments made Wednesday in the Austrian capital.
The U.S. and its allies are concerned Iran''s program strives to make nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies and says uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.
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