Vienna: Documentation presented to the governors of the UN s nuclear watchdog suggests Iran continued nuclear weapons work beyond the 2003 date cited in a recent US intelligence report, diplomats said.

The US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran - released in December - said Tehran had been working on the development of nuclear weapons, but abandoned the programme in 2003.

But Britain s ambassador to the IAEA, Simon Smith, said the material presented to the board of governors yesterday contained information about possible weapons work beyond that date.

"Certainly some of the dates that we were talking about, or that the secretariat was presenting in there, went beyond 2003," Smith said.

He was talking after being briefed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) head of safeguards, Olli Heinonen, about its latest report on Iran s disputed nuclear programme.

The briefing focused on allegations of Iran s involvement in weaponisation studies.

Diplomats attending the briefing said the material presented to the board of governors had infuriated Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

"He seemed angry," one western diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat added that Soltanieh was so enraged and went on at such length that IAEA deputy director general Heinonen, who chaired the meeting, had to intervene twice to ask him to make his point.

Source : PTI