International Atomic Energy Agency

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency says it has "serious concern" about Iran's potential to assemble a nuclear bomb because the country has not addressed questions about weapons designs, but it credited Iran for clarifying all other issues about its nuclear program history, a report released Friday says. The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency comes as the U.N. Security Council is considering new sanctions against Tehran. Iran has continued to defy earlier U.N.

Iranian documents obtained by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog strongly suggest that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons design as recently as four years ago, U.N. officials disclosed last week in a private briefing. The documents suggest that Iran's research on nuclear weapons continued several months after U.S.

China gave the International Atomic Energy Agency intelligence about Iran's nuclear program despite Beijing's opposition to harsh U.N. Security Council sanctions on Tehran, according to two senior diplomats familiar with the matter. United Nations Security Council members China and Russia have consistently watered down a U.S.-led push for severe penalties against Tehran.

The leader of Iran's nuclear program canceled a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, dealing a blow to the U.N. monitor's efforts to investigate allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms, an agency official said. The official said no reason had been given. But a senior diplomat had said IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei probably planned to use the meeting with Gholamreza Aghazadeh to request more information on the allegations.

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency surprised diplomats and arms control experts Monday by announcing that inspectors would visit Syria for two days to try to clear up the mystery of an alleged nuclear site destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last year. Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, told the board of governors in Vienna that a team of inspectors would travel to Syria on June 22 to investigate the site.

U.N. nuclear inspectors Monday examined a site in Syria that the United States says housed a secretly built nuclear reactor nearing completion when it was bombed by Israel nine months ago, a diplomat said. Syria denies that it has a covert nuclear weapons program and says the Israelis hit an ordinary military structure being built at Al Kibar, in the northeastern desert.

Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh signaled that Tehran will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts looking for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work. Iran insists that its only goal is to produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity. It dismisses as fabricated evidence supplied by the U.S. and other members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board that purportedly backs allegations that it continues to work on nuclear weapons. Aghazadeh said investigating such allegations "is outside the domain of the agency."

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency provided a crucial boost Friday to prospects for a nuclear deal between the United States and India, dramatically improving the Bush administration's odds for a landmark foreign policy success in its final months in office. The International Atomic Energy Agency approved a key inspection agreement that enables it to oversee and safeguard India's civilian nuclear facilities. The agreement amounted to a show of international support for the U.S.

Syria said it would bar U.N. nuclear investigators from revisiting a site bombed by Israeli jets on suspicion it was a secretly built atomic reactor. The move dealt a blow to International Atomic Energy Agency efforts to follow up on intelligence indicating that Syria was hiding a nuclear program that could be used to make weapons. Syria denies it has hidden nuclear facilities. A Foreign Ministry official told reporters that Syria's agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which already inspected the site in June, allowed only one visit.

The chief of the world's nuclear weapons watchdog organization considers five years of U.S. and international efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions a failure, as Tehran moves ever closer to obtaining the means to develop weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions to try to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment and other activities, while the United States and Europe have offered economic and security incentives.