Vienna, November 17: Iran’s building of a second uranium enrichment site is a “political message” that neither sanctions nor possible military attack will ever halt its nuclear program, a senior Iranian official said Tuesday.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, told the agency’s concern that Tehran may be hiding more nuclear work after it unveiled the enrichment site was an unfair political judgment beyond its mandate.
He said Iran’s disclosure of the site near Qom in September, being built in case its main Natanz enrichment plant was bombed, showed it was heeding transparency obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA feels Iran should have revealed the project at least two years ago.
–Agencies