A U.N. watchdog report this week is expected to show little progress in an investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research by Iran, diplomats said on Wednesday, a potential sticking point in six world powers’ diplomacy with Tehran.
The quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran’s nuclear programme, due on Thursday or Friday, is likely to say that Iran has still not provided information that it was supposed to do more than two months ago.
The confidential document will be issued to IAEA member states less than three weeks before a self-imposed November 24 deadline for Iran and P5+1 — U.S., France, Russia, U.K., China and Germany — to end a decade-old standoff over the Islamic Republic’s atomic activities.
While the six want Iran to scale back its uranium enrichment programme — and thereby lengthen the timeline for any covert bid to assemble nuclear arms — the IAEA is investigating allegations of past research on how to make the bomb itself.
