IAEA: Iran may have more nuke facilities

VIENNA, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Inspections of a recently disclosed Iranian nuclear facility raise the question of whether there are other such facilities, a U.N. agency says.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report published Monday that visits by IAEA inspectors to the facility in Qom last month gave rise to worries that Iran has constructed other such secret nuclear sites, CNN reported.

The inspection "reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency," the IAEA report says.

The U.S. broadcaster quoted the report as saying Iranian officials told the IAEA inspectors that construction of the site had begun during late 2007 and would not be operational until 2011. But the inspectors reportedly told Iran they "had acquired commercially available satellite imagery of the site indicating that there had been construction at the site between 2002 and 2004, and that construction activities were resumed in 2006 and had continued to date."

The report also notes that IAEA member states contend that design work on the Qom facility, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, had begun in 2006, CNN reported.