U.K. Stops Iranian Nuclear Smuggling Effort

British officials have stopped an Iranian effort to purchase weapon-grade uranium from international smugglers, the London Observer reported yesterday (see GSN, May 23, 2005).

Over 20 months, British intelligence services monitored a group of British citizens who successfully acquired the uranium from the Russian black market, according to the Observer.  The smugglers planned to sell the material to Iran through a middleman in Sudan, investigators said.

Authorities disrupted the plot in early 2006 before the uranium was delivered. 

They have arrested one person who has been charged with trying to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.  In addition, officials have closed down a British business, the Observer reported.

The Observer did not report the quantity of seized uranium, the identity of the arrested individual or the name of the shuttered company.

“Real credit must go to the enforcement authorities that they have disrupted this,” said Roger Berry, chairman of Parliament’s arms-monitoring Quadripartite Committee.  “The really worrying aspect is that if one company is involved, are there others out there?”

British officials said their investigations were continuing, in part by monitoring a number of British residents.  Investigators said they have discovered the first solid confirmation that al-Qaeda personnel have been actively seeking nuclear weapon materials and technology (Mark Townsend, The Observer, June 10).

Meanwhile, officials in Vienna canceled a meeting planned for today that they had originally described as an opportunity for Iran to offer more information about its nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, June 1).

Iranian negotiator Javad Vaidi was set to meet with Olli Heinonen, the top inspections officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, according to AP.  The session was aborted, however, after it became clear that Vaidi would offer “nothing substantial,” said one diplomat.

Iran might have hoped that the meeting would delay the onset of another round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, AP reported.  The council has twice imposed economic penalties against Iran after Tehran defied council demands to freeze the nation’s uranium enrichment program.  Another deadline passed last month and the United States has begun to press for a third round of sanctions.

U.S. officials would probably expand that push this week at the agency’s Board of Governors meeting, beginning today, AP reported (George Jahn, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, June 10).

Opening that session, agency head Mohamed ElBaradei continued to express his exasperation with Iran’s nuclear transparency (see GSN, May 23).

“Against the background of many years of undeclared activities, and taking into account the sensitivity of nuclear enrichment technology, it is incumbent on Iran to work urgently with the agency, under a policy of full transparency and active cooperation, in order for the agency to be able to provide assurance regarding the exclusively peaceful nature of all of Iran’s nuclear activities,” he told the 35-nation board.

“I am increasingly disturbed by the current stalemate and the brewing confrontation — a stalemate that urgently needs to be broken, and a confrontation that must be defused.  I continue to believe that dialogue and diplomacy are ultimately the only way to achieve the negotiated solution foreseen in the relevant Security Council resolutions,” he said.  “The earlier that conditions are created to move in this direction, the better” (International Atomic Energy Agency release, June 11).

In Washington, the Bush administration Friday announced that it had frozen the accounts of four Iranian companies, claiming they were involved with WMD proliferation, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, May 24).

The Treasury Department identified the four as Pars Tarash, Farayand Technique, Fajr Industries Group and Mizan Machine Manufacturing Group.

“So long as Iran continues to pursue a nuclear program in defiance of the international community's calls to halt enrichment, we will continue to hold those responsible to account for their conduct,” said Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, June 8).

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