Nov. 17, 2004
By Louis Charbonneau
Reuters
Washington Post
VIENNA, Nov 17 - Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and a nuclear bomb design from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Wednesday.
The group, which has given accurate information before, also said Iran is secretly enriching uranium at a military site previously unknown to the United Nations, despite promising France, Britain and Germany that it would halt all such work.
"(Abdul Qadeer) Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU (highly enriched uranium) in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters.
"I would doubt it was given enough for a weapon," he added.
Soleiman said Khan, who ran a global nuclear black market until it was shut down earlier this year, also gave Iran a Chinese-developed warhead design sometime between 1994 and 1996.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said Khan's network gave the bomb design to Libya, and investigators are trying to find out whether Iran got it too.
If substantiated, the accusations could damage Iran's efforts to escape censure for its nuclear programmes.
Those efforts culminated on Sunday when Iran promised the European Union to freeze its enrichment programme, sparing it a referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Washington, which has taken a tough line toward Iran on nuclear issues, said it was not in a position to evaluate the Iranian exile group's allegations, but said the group had given accurate information in the past.
"It is our hope that as the IAEA continues its investigation into Iran's nuclear program, that it will take all credible information about Iran's nuclear activities into account, including these reports, and then investigate them seriously," U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.
An EU diplomat said: "If true, it's significant."
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the IAEA followed up "every solid lead." That will not be easy, because the U.N. agency has been denied access to Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan. Pakistan declined to comment.
BEST SOURCE
Diplomats in Vienna say the NCRI exiles have been the best source of information on Tehran's undeclared nuclear programme.
The group established its reputation as a whistleblower in August 2002 when it revealed an undeclared enrichment plant at Natanz and another site at Arak. It has revealed other sites.
Washington accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge.
The NCRI said Iran was enriching uranium, purifying it for use for fuel or bombs, at a site in northeastern Tehran under a covert arms programme.
"It continues to enrich uranium as we speak," Soleiman said. He said the site had an unknown number of centrifuges, which purify uranium by spinning at supersonic speeds.
"There are more sites involving uranium enrichment in Iran," he said, adding their locations needed verification.
Soleiman said Iran wanted a bomb by the middle of next year. Israel estimates Iran will be "nuclear capable" in 2007.
Soleiman said the enrichment site, called the Centre for the Development of Advanced Defence Technology, was run by the Defence Ministry and located in Lavizan, near where the United States suspects Iran conducted secret nuclear work before demolishing all the buildings and carting off the rubble.
Soleiman said equipment from the old site was moved to the new enrichment site to hide it. He said the NCRI sent the IAEA a letter about the 60-acre top-secret site a few days ago.
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