UN nuclear chief criticises Iran

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency says he cannot guarantee that Iran is not trying to develop atomic arms.

Yukiya Amano, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, says he cannot give Iran’s nuclear programme a clean bill of health because Tehran is refusing to co-operate with an IAEA investigation.

Amano also says Syria is stonewalling an investigation of a site suspected to have been a secretly built reactor that would have produced plutonium once finished. Israeli warplanes destroyed that structure three years ago.

Amano was speaking at the start of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting in Vienna.