IAEA chief discusses Iran nuclear aims

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said he had not seen “any concrete evidence” that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program underway.

“We have seen in the past that certain procurements have not been reported to us, certain experiments,” Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN. “And that’s where we are working now with Iran to clarify the past and the present, but I have not received any information that there is a complete active nuclear weapon program going on right now.”

ElBaradei also was critical of Israel’s airstrike last month on a target in Syria that some analysts speculate may have been a clandestine nuclear reactor construction site. Syria has denied having such a facility.

ElBaradei said his agency had not received any information that Syria had a secret reactor site, and said if Israel did have information, it should have contacted his agency. “To bomb first and to ask questions later, I think it undermines the system,” ElBaradei said.