Iran says 'evil methods' of its enemies 'unpredictable' as 'pro-US' IAEA chief turns heat on Tehran.
TEHRAN - Iran will step up security for its nuclear scientists after a prominent physicist was assassinated and another wounded in bomb attacks, its atomic chief said in a report on Thursday.
"Based on a recent decision, it has been arranged that the security detail (of nuclear scientists) will be multiplied and other protection techniques will also be applied," Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
Assailants attached bombs to the cars of two senior scientists in Iran's nuclear programme on Monday, killing one of them, Majid Shahriari, and wounding the other, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani. Three other people were wounded.
"Dr. Shahriari was not alone as he was with his security detail," Salehi said. "But the evil methods that enemies employ are unpredictable."
Tehran has blamed the attacks on the United States and Israel, which accuse Iran seeking to make nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian programme. Tehran denies the charge.
"Since last year, we put under protection... hundreds of our scientists and experts working in the nuclear field," Salehi said.
In January, another Iranian nuclear scientist, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, was killed in a bomb attack which Tehran blamed on "mercenaries" in the pay of Israel and the United States.
The UN atomic watchdog turned up the heat on Syria and Iran, which are both under investigation for alleged illicit nuclear activity.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told a meeting of the body's board of governors that Iran was continuing to stonewall a separate investigation there.
Amano complained that Tehran "has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."
Iran was defying UN Security Council resolutions and pressing ahead with its sensitive uranium enrichment activities, Amano said.
It was also refusing to answer questions about possible military dimensions to its atomic work.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for eight years now to try and establish whether it is entirely peaceful as Tehran claims or whether it masks a covert drive to build a bomb as western powers believe.
Iran is under four sets of UN sanctions over its refusal to suspend enrichment of uranium, which can be used to make nuclear fuel or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atom bomb.
The IAEA's traditional year-end board meeting is being held just three days before much higher-level talks in Geneva where Iran is to sit down with the so-called P5+1 grouping of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany for the first time in over a year.
"I would like to welcome the forthcoming meeting scheduled for next week in Geneva," Amano said.
Amano suggested before he took office last year he was "solidly in the US court" on key issues including Iran, according US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.
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