IAEA sees risk Iran hiding more nuclear activity

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is concerned that Iran's belated revelation of a new uranium enrichment site may mean it is hiding further nuclear activity, an agency report said on Monday.

The report said Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun building the plant within a bunker beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom in 2007, but the IAEA had evidence the project had begun in 2002.

Iran reported its existence to the IAEA in September after, Western diplomats said at the time, learning that U.S., French and British spy services had discovered it.

IAEA inspectors admitted on October 26-27 to the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Site found construction well advanced. Iran told the Vienna-based agency it would be started up in 2011.

"The agency has indicated (to Iran) that its declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities not declared to the agency," the report said.

"(The IAEA wrote to Iran on November 6) asking for a clear statement on whether they have similar facilities they have decided to build or are building, or have built. The IAEA has not got an explicit answer as of this morning," said a senior international official familiar with the inquiry.

Iran says the site, like the rest of its nuclear program, is meant only to yield fuel for civilian energy plants.

Diplomats say the site's small size makes it unsuitable for any purpose but to enrich lower quantities of uranium suitable for a bomb, and the IAEA said Iran still had a number of questions to answer about the site's chronology and purpose.