Iran says work plan closed, U.S. intelligence fake

Iran said on Sunday it had cleared up all past outstanding issues over its nuclear program with the United Nations nuclear watchdog and accused the United States of providing intelligence that was fake.

"The work plan is finished," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters, referring to a pact between Tehran and the IAEA to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear activities one by one.

In its latest report published on Friday, the IAEA said Iran had responded to questions and clarified issues raised in the context of the work plan struck in August, with the exception of alleged studies into the possible deionization of nuclear materials.

The agency said it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports of work linked to making atomic bombs, adding Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers.

Soltanieh said the intelligence, coming mainly from the U.S. and a laptop spirited out of Iran in 2005, was fake. "This is 100 percent fabricated and forged," said Soltanieh.

Tehran was only shown some of the documents in mid-February, after it had already given its final assessment on the outstanding issues to the agency and in any case too late to be addressed in time for the February report, said Soltanieh.

United States envoy to the IAEA Gregory Schulte rejected the accusations, saying indications that Iran had conducted weapons related work had come from multiple sources, involved a number of activities and were "very consistent" with findings in the National Intelligence Estimate published in December.

Schulte also added that Iran has had years to answer. REUTERS