US says Iran nuke saga has hit ‘unfortunate milestone’

AFP: The UN nuclear watchdog’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear program marks the “unfortunate milestone” of a decade of Iranian defiance of the body, the US State Department said Wednesday. WASHINGTON (AFP) — The UN nuclear watchdog’s latest report on Iran’s nuclear program marks the “unfortunate milestone” of a decade of Iranian defiance of the body, the US State Department said Wednesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general issued the report Sunday, ten years after the IAEA’s first on the Iranian program in June 2003.

“And in the past 10 years, Iran has brazenly ignored multiple Board of Governors’ resolutions while advancing its enrichment program in blatant violation of its international obligations,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes such as energy generation and medical research but Western powers have accused it of seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Successive packages of UN sanctions have failed to force Iran to back down.

“As the international community stated previously in Board of Governors resolutions and statements on Iran, we’re going to continue to hold Iran accountable for its international nuclear obligations,” Ventrell said.

Ventrell said the United States looks forward to a meeting in June of the IAEA board, saying: “We’re going to discuss the report and look how to best respond to with other members of the board.”