TEHRAN: Iran on Wednesday said it supplied the UN nuclear watchdog with documents explaining the discovery of suspect enriched uranium traces, state media reported, the first acknowledgement from Tehran that it had answered the agency’s long-standing demands.

The head of Iran’s civilian Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, said Iran sent the requested explanations on March 20 about several former undeclared sites in Iran where there was evidence of past nuclear activity.

The deadline came as part of an agreement announced last month to resolve the problem of undeclared uranium particles in Iran by June — long a source of tension between Tehran and the UN atomic watchdog.

Eslami told reporters that Iran had handed over documents to the UN watchdog about the three requested sites in Iran, without elaborating. He expected agency inspectors to visit Iran “to review the answers” and finish a report on the subject by late June, he added.

The Vienna-based IAEA declined to comment on Eslami’s remarks.

The IAEA in 2019 first discovered the traces of man-made uranium that suggested they were once connected to Iran’s nuclear program.

US intelligence agencies, Western nations and the IAEA have said Iran ran an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.

AP