U.N.: Iran's Secret Nuke Research Had Foreign Help

Nov 11, 2003
By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - In decades of clandestine atomic research, Iran received help from sources in four countries with sensitive technology that could be used to develop weapons, the U.N. nuclear watchdog says in a confidential report.

The countries were not identified.

In the report, obtained in full by Reuters, the U.N. said it had not so far found evidence of an atomic weapons program in Iran, but Tehran had dabbled in activity often associated with bombs like plutonium production and uranium enrichment.

The United States has long accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy program as a front to build a bomb. Iran denies this and says it was forced to hide some nuclear activities because of decades of sanctions, which it says were illegal.

"Iran acknowledged that, starting in the 1970s, it had had contracts related to laser (uranium) enrichment with foreign sources from four countries," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in its 30-page report.

It did not name the countries, but diplomats have said Pakistan, a nuclear weapons state that has opted out of signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was almost certainly one.

Enrichment involves purifying uranium to make it usable as nuclear fuel or in weapons. It can be done with centrifuges that separate the fissile uranium atoms through high-speed spinning, or with lasers.

Diplomats said it was too early to say whether the IAEA Board of Governors would report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions, for violating its obligations under the NPT, which Tehran signed in 1970.

"This is a very stiffly-worded report that shows clear non-compliance by the Iranians," a Western diplomat said. But he said it was unclear if France, Germany and Britain would want to anger Iran by supporting a verdict of non-compliance when the board meets on November 20 to discuss the Iran report.

On October 21, the European Union's three biggest states agreed with Iran that Tehran would suspend its uranium enrichment program and sign a protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections.

Monday, Tehran announced it had fulfilled its end of the deal. Diplomats said France, Germany and Britain were now bound by a tacit agreement not to support a U.S.-backed non-compliance vote.

JURY STILL OUT The IAEA made it clear it was still engaged in an inspection process and the jury was still out on whether Iran had at some point in the past attempted to secretly develop an atomic bomb as Washington alleges.

"To date there is no evidence that (Iran's) previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons program," it said.

"However, given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes."

After months of evasive statements about suspicious findings by U.N. inspectors in Iran, the IAEA Board of Governors on September 12 gave Iran until the end of October to come clean about all its past nuclear activities.

A European diplomat said the results of Iran's disclosure of activities, many commonly connected to bomb-making, were "a very serious matter."

"Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of low enriched uranium ...and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium," the report said.

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