Dick Cheney, US vice-president, said yesterday that Iran might have restarted work on nuclear weapons, writes Daniel Dombey in Washington . Speaking in Oman on a tour of the Middle East in part focused on rallying the region's leaders against Tehran, Mr Cheney said the current status of Iran's programme was unclear.

Last year, a US national intelligence estimate said it had "high confidence" that Iran's weaponisation work had halted in 2003, adding with "moderate confidence" that it had not been resumed as of mid-2007.