VIENNA, June 13: The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said on Monday he was not ready to end his two-year probe of Iran’s atomic programme, which Washington says is a cover for a nuclear weapons programme. “The Iran file will be closed when we close all the issues that are still open,” Mr ElBaradei told reporters.

“We are inching forward but I’d like to have more speedy cooperation on the part of Iran,” he told reporters after his re-election.

Mr ElBaradei praised Iran for granting access to nuclear materials inside the country and for suspending its uranium enrichment programme, which could be used to make purified uranium fuel for atomic power plants or weapons.

However, he said that Iran needed to provide more information about its enrichment centrifuge programme.

“On the extent and nature of (Iran’s) centrifuge programme, we still need more information,” Mr ElBaradei said.

Centrifuges are machines that purify uranium by spinning at supersonic speeds. Tehran had concealed its enrichment programme from the IAEA for nearly two decades before information about it was revealed by a group of Iranian exiles in August 2002. —Reuters