Iran broke law by not declaring atom site - ElBaradei

By Mark Heinrich

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran broke a transparency law of the U.N. nuclear watchdog by failing to disclose much earlier a nuclear plant being built for uranium enrichment, agency director Mohamed ElBaradei said in a televised interview.

Iran reported the site to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Sept. 21. Western powers said Tehran was forced to do so after learning they were about to discover a plant whose construction began 3-1/2 years ago.

Western diplomatic sources said the plant was hidden inside a mountainside on a former Iranian Revolutionary Guards base near the Shi'ite holy city of Qom. It heightened suspicions of a covert Iranian aim to develop atomic bombs, they said.

Iran has said the site is meant for enriching uranium only to low levels for civilian energy, like its much larger Natanz enrichment complex which is under IAEA monitoring, and that it had no legal obligation to reveal it until now.

ElBaradei disagreed.

"Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that," he said in an interview with CNN-India during a visit to New Delhi, in remarks relayed by the IAEA's Vienna headquarters.

"They are saying that this was meant to be a back-up facility in case we (Iran) were attacked, and so they could not tell us earlier on," ElBaradei said.