Agency says Iran violating nuke deal

VIENNA — Uranium particles of man-made origin have been discovered at a site in Iran not declared to the United Nations, the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday as it confirmed a litany of violations by Tehran of the 2015 nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has begun enriching uranium at a heavily fortified installation inside a mountain, is increasing its stockpile of processed uranium and is exceeding the allowable enrichment levels.

All such steps are prohibited under the agreement Iran reached with world powers to prevent it from building a bomb. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But since the U.S. under President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact last year and imposed new sanctions, Iran has been openly stepping up violations in an attempt to pressure the other major signatories — Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia — to help it economically.

The IAEA report came as European Union members met to decide how to keep the deal alive.

“We now need to make it clear to Iran that it can’t continue like this,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters.

Those efforts became more complicated after the IAEA reported that its inspectors confirmed traces of uranium “at a location in Iran not declared to the agency.”

The assertion appeared to confirm allegations made by the U.S. and Israel of a secret nuclear warehouse.

The IAEA did not identify the site in the confidential quarterly report, which was distributed to member states and seen by the Associated Press.

In its report, the IAEA also confirmed that the centrifuges are at work at Iran’s Fordo facility — an underground site ringed by antiaircraft guns — and that enrichment of uranium has been going on there since Saturday.