US ambassador Jackie Sanders told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency: "It is evident that Iran has not come clean about its past, or present nuclear activities," according to a text of her speech the the IAEA 35-nation board of governors.

She said "contradictions" between Iran's reporting to the IAEA and "the facts as they are uncovered cannot be explained by inadvertent error. They are simply too numerous and pervasive."

Sanders called on Iran to dismantle "all nuclear fuel cycle activities," which can make fuel for civilian reactors but also bomb material, if it wished to strike a deal with the European Union to guarantee it is not developing nuclear weapons, something the United States claims it is doing.

This US call for dismantling includes a heavy-water reactor Iran is building and which is not part of a suspension in nuclear fuel cycle work currently in effect by Iran while it talks with the EU.

Sanders said the United States and the EU were "united . . . in our resolve that Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapons capability."

But Iranian ambassador Mohammad Akhondzadeh said that while Iran was maintaining its suspension "time however is of essence and we cannot keep our peaceful nuclear facilities idle for much longer."

Iran has admitted, after IAEA analysis of samples, to separating out small amounts of plutonium, a potential material for atomic bombs, more recently than it originally reported, IAEA deputy direcor for safeguards Pierre Goldschmidt told the board.

The IAEA "has been pursuing with Iran the dates of its plutonium separation experiments" and Iran has admitted to purifying one bottle of plutonium in 1995 and solution in a second bottle as late as 1998, Goldschmidt said, according to a text of his speech obtained by AFP.

This was a revision of Iran's statements since 2003 "that the experiments were completed in 1993," Goldschmidt said.

The IAEA had in November already said that "the amounts of separated plutonium declared by Iran had been understated (quantities in the milligram range rather than the microgram range as stated by Iran)," according to an IAEA report.

Sanders said Iran needs "to help remove the question marks that still exist about remaining unexplained activities and to provide assurances that there are no more hidden elements in its program."

She said the discrepancy in Iran's reporting on its plutonium experiments led to "no other conclusion but that this is yet another previously unreported activity and another breach of Iran's safeguards obligations"under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

But Akhondzadeh said Iran has been providing full cooperation, in some cases beyond normal NPT safeguards, and that key matters, such as uranium contamination found on imported equipment, were being resolved.

Akhondzadeh said the IAEA "can be certain that Iran has no reason, whatsoever, to withold related information.

"Bearing that in mind, we will continue to do whatever we can, and search wherever possible, to convey any other information that may surface to thea agency."

Non-proliferation expert David Albright told AFP from Washington that the IAEA results show that "when the international spotlight is taken off Iran, they stop cooperating" until they are caught.

Goldschmidt's speech, which IAEA officials had wanted to keep confidential, outlined areas in which the IAEA is still trying to pin down Iran's nuclear activities in an investigation that began in February 2003.

In other developments, the IAEA signed Thursday an agreement with Saudi Arabia that exempts Riyadh from inspections of its nuclear facilites, an exemption the United States, EU and Australia had resisted, diplomats said.

Saudi Arabia is not believed to be a direct nuclear proliferation threat, but diplomats were seeking to calm fears amid a major test of wills with nearby Iran, which US officials suspect of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

The IAEA board also discussed North Korea, which expelled agency inspectors in 2002 and now says it has atomic bombs.

Senior US official Christopher Ford called on North Korea to return to six-party negotiations "without preconditions and abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons."

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