|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Dissident Says Iran Doing Nuclear Work in Tunnel System By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — An exiled Iranian dissident alleged yesterday that Iran is working on nuclear warheads and nuclear-capable missiles at a single, large-scale site under Tehran (see GSN, Nov. 21). “Given the revelation about this strategically important nuclear and missile project, it is quite clear that the regime has built” a 20-square-mile tunnel network under southeastern Tehran, as well as other sites identified previously, “to manufacture long-range, nuclear warhead-capable missiles,” Jafarzadeh said. Jafarzadeh described “a series of interrelated tunnels and other underground locations that contain equipment for nuclear warhead-capable missiles under a military unit that deals with both nuclear weapons and missile development.” The Iranian Defense Ministry is carrying out the “secret and strategic plan,” Jafarzadeh said, under orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and with advice from North Korea about building secret underground sites. “North Korean experts have cooperated with the regime in the design and building of this complex. Many blueprints of the site have been prepared by North Korean experts,” he said. Jafarzadeh said missiles the site is turning out include the nuclear-capable Shahab 3 and Ghadar varieties. The Ghadar’s maximum range is more than 1,500 miles, he said. “The most secretive part of the program … deals with the nuclear warhead,” he added, without elaborating. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors is to convene Thursday in the latest of a two-year series of meetings on Iran’s nuclear programs that was partially set in motion by the resistance council’s revelations. U.S. and IAEA officials have called some subsequent information from the group inaccurate. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack yesterday said Iran has secret nuclear programs but that he could not confirm Jafarzadeh’s new information. “This is a program that is covert. It’s hidden from sight, and it’s hidden through a variety of different means,” McCormack said. “There’s been certainly a very mixed record in terms of some of these groups in talking about so-called revelations about Iran’s nuclear programs, but, you know, I can’t speak to these particular allegations.” Iran’s parliament voted over the weekend to resume uranium enrichment in Iran and deny some access to IAEA inspectors if the board in Vienna refers the case to the U.N. Security Council in New York. Nuclear Control Institute founder Paul Leventhal said at the Jafarzadeh press conference that Iran’s secrecy raised questions about a proposal for defusing the crisis by allowing Iran to enrich uranium in Russia under Russian and IAEA oversight. “The stage is set for Iran to accept the Russian offer, to resume talks with the EU-3 [France, Germany and the United Kingdom] and to withdraw its threatened actions in return for no referral to the Security Council, but is this the best outcome, given the time it will buy Iran to continue its nuclear-weapon and missile work at secret military sites?” Leventhal asked. Leventhal and Iran Policy Committee Chairman Raymond Tanter, a former senior National Security Council staff member, did not endorse Jafarzadeh’s allegations but called on the U.N. nuclear agency and capable governments to investigate.
| ||||||||||
Back to top
