Iran says U.N. atom body in credibility crisis

Reuters: Iran said Monday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog was suffering a crisis of “moral authority and credibility,” underlining increasingly strained ties between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran said Monday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog was suffering a crisis of “moral authority and credibility,” underlining increasingly strained ties between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, criticized the IAEA’s latest report on the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear program as unfair and suggested that Western powers had influenced it.

The report showed Iran pressing ahead with its atomic work, which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear arms, in defiance of tougher international sanctions. Iran says its work is for peaceful uses only.

“It appears that the agency is suffering from (a) moral authority and credibility crisis,” Salehi told the IAEA’s general assembly in Vienna, speaking in English.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall; Editing by Peter Graff)