VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s mixed assessment on Iran’s disputed nuclear activities suggests Tehran is willing to do only just enough to stave off potential sanctions, but not prepared to cede to all of the West’s demands, analysts said on Friday.

“They’re simply buying time. They’ve not stopped uranium enrichment,” a process which can be used both to generate electricity and also make a nuclear bomb, said Simon Barrett, director and Iran expert at the London-based think tank, International Media Intelligence Analysis (IMIA).

“They want to prove they’re cooperating with the UN, while at the same time expanding their enrichment activities. That brings them closer to the nuclear bomb.” An official close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said its inspectors had been able to confirm for the first time Iran’s claim that it had 3,000 centrifuges enriching uranium.

That is the number scientists believe is sufficient, in ideal conditions, to produce enough enriched uranium in one year to make a single nuclear bomb.

In the report sent to its 35-member board on Thursday, the IAEA found that Iran had taken important strides in revealing the extent of its nuclear programme.

But it was still defying UN demands that it suspend uranium enrichment and had also refused to sign the so-called Additional Protocol, a key document allowing unrestricted inspections.

That made it difficult for IAEA inspectors to be certain there were no undeclared nuclear activities in Iran, the report complained.

Indeed, the agency’s knowledge of Iran’s current nuclear activities was “diminishing”, the report warned.

Trying to extract information from Iran was like trying to crack a nut, an IAEA official said.

“You have to ask for the precise piece of information to get at it. It’s not thrown at you,” he said.

The United States, which has long been pushing for further sanctions against Tehran, said the findings proved that Iran was just “stringing the IAEA along”. It “shows that Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA remains selective and incomplete,” said US ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte.

Washington vowed to press ahead with its drive for additional sanctions.

The next step will come later this month with a second report by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

If Solana’s report finds that Iran is not cooperating sufficiently, the UN Security Council will decide whether a further round of sanctions against Iran is necessary.

But not everyone, including Russia and China, which also hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council alongside the US, France and Britain, is in favour of such sanctions.

Neither country has reacted officially so far to the IAEA’s findings.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, also believed that sanctions alone were not the answer.

“The US and other states must recognise that sanctions alone will not convince Iran to comply or suspend its programme,” he said.

“Such pressure must be accompanied by direct engagement on a broad range of issues if a resolution to the crisis is to be achieved any time soon.” Kimball acknowledged that while the report “shows progress in some important areas, troubling questions remain”.

“From this point forward, it is vital that Iran accelerate and enhance its cooperation with the IAEA to address the other issues in the work plan and agree to abide by the Additional Protocol in order to diminish concern and suspicion about the purpose of its enrichment and heavy water reactor projects,” the expert said.

For their part, IAEA officials seem willing to give Iran more time.

“The point is that we now have more confidence that the nuclear material they say they’ve got is what they’ve really got,” one senior official said.

“They have changed gear with us, they are engaging with us.”

—AFP