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Iran Admits to Covertly Purchasing Nuclear Equipment
Iran yesterday acknowledged that it had covertly purchased components for its nuclear program on the international nuclear black market, according to Reuters (see GSN, Feb. 20). “We have bought some things from some dealers but we don’t know what the source was or what country they came from,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said yesterday. “It happens that some of those (dealers) were from some subcontinent countries,” he said. Top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has reportedly confessed to having transferred nuclear technology to Iran and other countries. On Friday, Malaysian police investigating the nuclear black market revealed by Khan reported that he had sold millions of dollars worth of uranium enrichment centrifuge components to Iran in the mid-1990s (see related GSN story, today). Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about the purchases, Asefi said. Western diplomats in Vienna said Tehran has provided the IAEA with the names of five European middleman and six Pakistani scientists who aided Iran’s nuclear program (Parinoosh Arami, Reuters, Feb. 22). Asefi’s statement came after the head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, met with IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in Vienna, according to the New York Times. During the meeting, ElBaradei is believed to have summarized the results of a report the IAEA is expected to release this week on Iran’s nuclear program, which may have led to the Iranian Foreign Ministry statement, according to U.S. and European diplomats. “The Iranians are admitting to the dimensions of their program bit by bit, as they are confronted with individual pieces of evidence,” said a senior U.S. official. “The Iranians are still stonewalling,” the official said (David Sanger, New York Times, Feb. 23). A senior Western diplomat in Tehran said yesterday, though, that he did not expect any more revelations about Iran’s nuclear program. “I don’t think there will be more nasty surprises on the nuclear file,” the diplomat said (Arami, Reuters).
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