Report Seems to Affirm Suspicions of Iran’s Nuclear Program

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2011 — A new report by the Unit­ed Nation’s nuclear watch­dog group seems to affirm that Iran’s nuclear inter­ests are not just for peace­ful pur­pos­es, a senior Defense Depart­ment offi­cial said here today.

Pen­ta­gon Press Sec­re­tary George Lit­tle addressed the Inter­na­tion­al Atom­ic Ener­gy Agency report dur­ing a meet­ing with Pen­ta­gon reporters. 

“The IAEA report is some­thing peo­ple are tak­ing a look at inside the depart­ment,” Lit­tle said. “The sense is that the report affirms what we believed about Iran and the program. 

“The bot­tom line here is, Iran has been non-trans­par­ent with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty about its inten­tions,” he con­tin­ued. “With respect to its nuclear pro­gram, the Unit­ed States and many oth­er coun­tries have called on Iran to abide by its inter­na­tion­al obligations.” 

The IAEA cir­cu­lat­ed the report yes­ter­day to its board of gov­er­nors and the U.N. Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, but has not released it, accord­ing to the agency’s web­site. The agency found that Iran is devel­op­ing weapons with its nuclear mate­r­i­al, accord­ing to press reports. 

The IAEA board of gov­er­nors is sched­uled to address the report at its Nov. 17 meet­ing in Vien­na, Austria. 

“It’s impor­tant for them to change their behav­ior and pro­vide trans­paren­cy into their nuclear pro­gram,” Lit­tle said of Iran’s gov­ern­ment in Tehran. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)