"I have seen some information that would suggest that they've been actively working on delivery systems to deliver it," Powell said. "There is no doubt in my mind ... that they are interested in a nuclear weapon that has utility, meaning that this is something they would be able to deliver."
Iran has recently improved its missile capabilities by upgrading its Shahab-3 ballistic missile said to have a range of about 1,200 miles. Earlier this month, Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said the country was capable of mass-producing the missile.
But on the same day Powell made his comments on Iran's nuclear activities, the National Council for Resistance in Iran, which is acting as the political arm of the Iraq-based Mujahedeen Khalq Organization, said that a secret uranium enrichment site had been built northeast of Tehran.
The MKO is banned as a terrorist group in the United States and the European Union.
The organization first revealed the existence of two nuclear sites in Iran two years ago, prompting international inspections. This time, the group's senior official, Farid Soleimani, also claimed at a news conference in Paris that the former Pakistani chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Ghadeer Khan, had delivered designs for a nuclear bomb as well as highly enriched uranium to Iran in 2001.
However, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan dismissed the group's statement as "speculative claims made by individuals," while another unnamed senior Pakistani official called the allegation "a highly exaggerated account."
Abdul Ghadeer Khan, known as the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, publicly confessed in February to having sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi Thursday called the allegations "false fabrications" which are "worthless and repetitive" and aimed to destroy the existing "positive atmosphere" on the eve of the upcoming meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors. The U.N. watchdog is scheduled to discuss Iran's nuclear dossier on Nov. 25.
The "discredited terrorist MKO" had made such fabrications in the past in order to curry favor with the Western governments which have long put it on the list of terrorist groups and organizations, Asefi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
"Iran is not involved in any secret nuclear activity and the IAEA is clear about it," reiterated the spokesman.
Asefi on Friday also called Powell's comments "baseless" which "come after Iran's agreement with the European big three (Britain, France and Germany) and after the report of Mr. (Mohammed) ElBaradei was indicative of the U.S. anger over Iran's process of confidence-building and transparency."
On Tuesday, the IAEA said Tehran had not diverted any of its declared nuclear materials to a weapons program, thus making the report a victory for Iran.
"The U.S. statesmen have repeatedly become disgraced and discredited before world public opinion for publishing inaccurate information," he further said, suggesting the U.S, officials to "reconsider their intelligence sources."
The Iranian official was apparently referring to Powell's Feb. 2003 speech about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, which so far has proved untrue. But Powell said he had "seen some information that would suggest" that Iran was working on the technology to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads.
