UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei angrily denied Saturday charges he had collaborated with Iran ahead of publishing written reports on his investigation of the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear programme. "We never show a report to any single member" of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), "not the least of course an inspected country," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei was reacting to news reports that he had heeded Iranian demands to drop mentions of IAEA requests to visit the Parchin military site and Iran's use of the sensitive material beryllium in a report he had made to the IAEA board in September.
AFP had in September quoted a US official as saying ElBaradei had done this and there have been further such allegations in the media since then.
The United States wants the IAEA to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions for what Washington says is a covert nuclear weapons program but ElBaradei says the "jury is still out" on whether Tehran's program is peaceful or not.
ElBaradei characterised as "gutter accusations" reports that he gives Iran advance looks at his reports, which are filed ahead of IAEA board of governors meetings that decide how tough the agency will be on Tehran over its nuclear program.
"We don't leak (special IAEA reports on Iran) to any single person outside the 10 or 20 people who are involved in the process," of drafting the text at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, ElBaradei said.
"We don't negotiate our report . . . at the end of the day not a single paragraph is shown to any single country until the report is out," ElBaradei said.
He said the IAEA did not "even discuss" the report ahead of time with Iran beyond technical requests for information.