BRUSSELSUnited Nations experts will press Iran this weekend to start addressing long-standing Western suspicions about the military dimension of past nuclear activities.Tehran for years denied its nuclear work had any military purpose. But it has stalled on international demands to answer questions about detailed allegations that it has worked on nuclear weapons.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog is seeking explanations about work mainly carried out before 2003 that would enable Iran to one day assemble a nuclear weapon relatively quickly.
Western officials said if Iran moves swiftly and fully to answer the concerns, it could avoid being pushed for public disclosure of all past activities and won't be backed into a corner over past statements.
If Iran doesn't convincingly address these questions, it will likely undermine negotiations with six world powers aimed at imposing strict controls over the country's future nuclear activities in return for relief from international sanctions.
A new round of the six-power talks, which seek a comprehensive deal over Iran's nuclear program, is to start in Vienna on Feb. 18.
On Saturday, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, led by Deputy Director General for Safeguards Tero Varjoranta, will visit Tehran to start their own talks.
Iran has already allowed IAEA inspectors access to a uranium mine and a heavy-water production plant under a Nov. 11 confidence-building accord.
But diplomats said Iran's disclosures of past activities are likely to be more difficult to extract.
While much of Iran's alleged weaponization activities are thought to have ended in 2003, the IAEA in November 2011 detailed allegations it said were based on multiple intelligence sources.
The agency said that Iran may have worked on a covert effort to produce uranium hexafluoride, a precursor to making fissile material for nuclear weapons.
It said Iran seemed to have undertaken high-explosives work suitable for detonating warheads and carried out computer-modeling work possibly intended to develop a nuclear warhead for its ballistic missiles.
The IAEA said there was some evidence parts of the program may have continued after 2003. An IAEA board resolution expressed "deep and increasing concern" and demanded Iran hand over relevant information, documents, sites, material and personnel.
In a security conference in Munich on Sunday, speaking alongside Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said Tehran must come clean.
"I can understand lots of things happened in the pastand I also understand this is a difficult issue to clarify," Mr. Amano said. "We'll take a step-by-step approach but in a nutshell, this should be clarified."
Western diplomats said they expect Iran's first steps will be modest.
For example, renewed IAEA access to the sprawling Iranian military site of Parchin, where Iran is suspected of carrying out sensitive explosives work, is likely to remain off the table this weekend, several officials said.
The IAEA has repeatedly said Iran may have sanitized that site. Iran has also repeatedly blocked IAEA attempts to interview the suspected head of its weaponization program, Mohsen Fahkrizadeh.
Some diplomats said the place to start is clarifying questions around the production of dual-use nuclear material that can be used in a civilian or military nuclear program.
Mr. Amano pointed to one such issueIran's production of the radioactive element polonium at its Tehran research reactor.
Diplomats also appear open to ideas put forward in a recent paper by nuclear experts that could let Iran avoid having to publicly confess to possible past military nuclear work.
In last month's paper, Mark Hibbs, Senior Associate, Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment and Andreas Persbo, a nuclear expert at arms verification group VERTIC, said that in at least two cases, the IAEA agreed to shut the file on a country's nuclear program when authorities made a clear decision to convert to purely civilian purposes. South Africa in the early 1990s is one example.
The paper, which has been widely read among senior diplomats, suggests a deal where Iran privately acknowledges the bulk of its nuclear work in return for the U.S., Russia and other powers persuading the IAEA to drop investigations and clear Iran.
The six powers and Iran's allies on the IAEA board could then declare the possible military activities fully resolved.
By The Wall Street Journal
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