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 What is the explanation for what international negotiators have called Iran's "documented record of concealment and deception" about its nuclear program?
That is the question that Iran has posed the world and its nuclear watchdog, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with increasing urgency since it began work on its first nuclear reactor in 2002. Since then, Iran has conceded the existence of nuclear fuel plants and, in January 2006, taken the crisis to a new level by ending its voluntary, two-year suspension of its uranium-enrichment program. Is this a legitimate part of Iran's efforts to develop a civilian nuclear-energy capacity? Or is the research intended to provide Iran's scientists with the expertise needed for a military nuclear program? Is a country that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 aiming to acquire nuclear weapons?
Iran's half-hearted cooperation with the IAEA is fueling a confrontation that could lead to the United Nations' supreme body, the Security Council, imposing sanctions -- and increase the possibility of military action. Behind the immediate crisis lurks the fear that nuclear weapons will proliferate, in particular in the Middle East, an already combustible region.
This special RFE/RL page dedicated to Iran's nuclear program traces the events as they happened and outlines the arguments, the politics, and the concerns that the program has generated.
An annotated timeline of the standoff over Iran's nuclear program.
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