UNITED NATIONS — Iran is actively trying to buy nuclear technology through blacklisted companies, according to a confidential UN report, citing information from the British government.

The claims — which if true would violate UN sanctions — were made to a UN panel of experts just weeks after world powers reached a framework deal with Iran on curbing its nuclear program.

“The UK government informed the panel on the 20 April 2015 that it ‘is aware of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network which has been associated with Iran’s Centrifuge Technology Company (TESA) and Kalay Electric Company (KEC)’,” the report, seen by AFP, said.

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“Given the late communication, the panel could not independently investigate the above information.”

US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Thursday, “We remain concerned about their procurement, taken steps to designate entities for procurement in the recent past.” She said the US has ongoing discussions with the UN about the issue.

The United Nations has slapped a series of sanctions on Iran over its failure to address international concerns about its nuclear program and suspicions that it could have military purposes.

KEC is on a UN list of blacklisted Iranian companies for its ties to the nuclear program.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security has described the Tehran-based Kalay Electric Company as being “Iran’s primary centrifuge research and development site in the late 1990s and early 2000s, until Iran moved operations to the Natanz site in 2002.” It has said the company was private until being bought by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

“The name ‘Kalaye Electric’ means ‘electric goods,’ implying that Iran kept the original name to help disguise the true purpose of the facility,” the institute has written. It added that when the International Atomic Energy Agency asked to inspect the site in 2003, Iran responded that it was a watch factory that also made a few centrifuge components.

The Treasury Department in 2011 said the Iran Centrifuge Technology Company “plays a crucial role in Iran’s uranium enrichment nuclear program. It is involved in the production of IR-1 centrifuges, the type of centrifuge Iran has used to enrich uranium and has used in facilities belonging to … Kalaye Electric Company.”

The report was presented to the Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee on April 21, just as negotiators from the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany – began work on finalizing the nuclear deal.

The panel noted that overall there had been few reported violations of UN sanctions.

“It might be linked, inter alia, to a decrease in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prohibited activities and restraint on the part of member-states so as not to affect the negotiations process” for the nuclear deal, the report said.

World powers have set June 30 as the deadline for finalizing the agreement that would end one of the most vexing disputes in international diplomacy and could open the door to revamping relations with Iran.