The New York Times, 6 Sep 2014 – Prospects for an international agreement over Iran’s disputed nuclear program appeared to suffer a setback Friday when a United Nations monitoring agency said the Iranians had yet to meet two of five confidence-building measures to ensure that their activities are purely peaceful.
A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna said Iran had so far not explained unresolved issues over its research into detonators that could be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, and had likewise not explained studies that could be relevant to calculating the explosive yield of a nuclear weapon.
The issues are important because Iran must satisfy the atomic agency’s requests for transparency as part of a broader negotiation Iran has undertaken with the major powers aimed at assuring them its uranium enrichment and other nuclear work will never be used to make bombs.

Negotiators are believed to remain far apart on some of the most contentious issues, including Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity.

The Obama administration imposed sanctions on several Iranian organizations late last month.
The announcement came as the Iranian government seemed to be balking at scrutiny of its nuclear program. It had refused to allow new inspections of a military installation in Parchin, southwest of Tehran, where I.A.E.A. inspectors have suspected some experimental detonation work once was carried out.