The head of the UN nuclear watchdog today urged Iran to answer remaining questions about a uranium-enrichment programme that Washington claims is a front aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a week-long, closed-door session of the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), agency chief Mr Mohamed ElBaradei demanded transparency and co-operation from Iran.
"I'm going to strongly urge Iran to clarify all issues relevant to its enrichment programme to make sure that all its enrichment activities have been declared and [are] under agency verification," he said shortly before the meeting began.
Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium to make it useable in nuclear fuel - or in weapons.
An IAEA report last month said that traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium were found at an enrichment plant in Iran. Iran blames the particles on contaminated components it purchased abroad on the black market.
Mr ElBaradei's comments would appear to support a US-sponsored resolution demanding "urgent and essential cooperation" from Tehran as IAEA inspectors try to get a complete picture of Iran's nuclear programme.
Due to a lack of support on the 35-nation board, US officials temporarily dropped plans to urge the board to report Iran to the UN Security Council for non-compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran has so far refused to sign the IAEA's so-called Additional Protocol, which would give the agency's inspectors the right to carry out short-notice inspections aimed at exposing out any possible secret weapons-related activities.
The United States, which branded Iran a member of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and pre-war Iraq, says the Islamic republic wants to be able to make a nuclear bomb within a few years - a charge Tehran denies.