Vienna (AsiaNews) - Iran has not been pursuing a uranium enrichment programs for military purposes since 2003, according to an IAEA report published yesterday, entitled "Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme”.
The IAEA report exonerates Iran that from the suspicion and accusations of recent years that it wanted to acquire a military nuclear program and produce atomic bombs.
Rejecting these charges, laid mainly by the United States and Israel, Tehran has always insisted that its nuclear activities were peaceful. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran Abbas Araqchi said that the report shows that their program was intended for peaceful purposes.
The publication of the IAEA report and its results were a necessary condition to implement the nuclear deal signed by Iran and the six major powers (see photo), which provides for UN inspections of Iranian nuclear sites in return for gradual lifting of financial and economic sanctions on the country.
The IAEA report clearly shows that until 2003 Iran had been pursuing a structured program to acquire many skills needed in a nuclear weapons program. Some operations have continued at least until 2009 but in an unstructured way.
An IAEA member told AsiaNews that "there is no concrete proof that Iran has pushed to a level of production of enriched material: there is no obvious trace of nuclear material used in these illegal research activities".
The IAEA adds that there is no credible evidence that there may be still some low intensity activity at least since 2009.
The United States said they were ready to take the next step to implement the nuclear deal, after the publication of the IAEA report.