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Diplomats: China Has Provided IAEA With Intelligence on Iran's Nuke Program
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
VIENNA, Austria - China, an opponent of harsh U.N. Security Council
sanctions against Iran, has nonetheless recently provided the International
Atomic Energy Agency with intelligence linked to Tehran's alleged attempts
to make nuclear arms, diplomats have told The Associated Press.
Beijing, along with Moscow, has acted as a brake within the council,
consistently watering down a U.S.-led push to impose severe penalties on
Tehran for its nuclear defiance since the first set of sanctions was passed
in late 2006.
A Chinese decision to provide information for use in the agency's attempts
to probe Iran's purported nuclear weapons program would appear to reflect
growing international unease about how honest the Islamic republic has been
in denying it ever tried to make such arms.
The new development was revealed by two senior diplomats who closely follow
the IAEA probe of Iran's nuclear program. One commented late last week and
the other Wednesday.
The IAEA declined comment, and nobody was picking up phones at the Iranian
and Chinese missions to the IAEA.
John Bolton, the previous U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and before
that the U.S. undersecretary of state in charge of the Iran nuclear dossier,
said any such Chinese move would be "potentially significant" because of
Beijing's former military ties to Tehran.
In a telephone call from Washington, Bolton said America believed that the
Chinese had helped Iran develop its nuclear program, particularly in one
area of uranium enrichment, "plus they had cooperation on ballistic missile
programs as well."
The diplomats said Beijing was the most surprising entry among a fairly
substantial list of nations recently forwarding information to the agency
that adds to previously provided intelligence, and which could be relevant
in attempts to probe Iran for past or present nuclear weapons research.
But they said several other countries not normally considered to be in the
anti-Iran camp had also done so in recent weeks.
The diplomats - who demanded anonymity because their information was
confidential - declined to name individual nations. But they attributed a
generally increased flow of information to the U.N. nuclear watchdog to
concerns sparked by a multimedia presentation to the 35 IAEA board members
by the agency in February about intelligence previously forwarded by member
states on Iran's alleged clandestine nuclear arms program.
One of the diplomats said the agency also was on the lookout for misleading
information provided it, either inadvertently or in attempts to falsely
implicate Iran.
One example, he said was a document showing experiments with implosion
technology that can be used to detonate a nuclear device. While the document
appeared genuine, it was unclear whether it originated from Iran, said the
diplomat.
Suspected weapons-related work outlined in the February presentation and
IAEA reports preceding it include:
-uranium conversion linked to high explosives testing and designs of a
missile re-entry vehicle, all apparently interconnected through involvement
of officials and institutions;
-procurement of so-called "dual use" equipment and experiments that also
could be used in both civilian and military nuclear programs; and
-Iran's possession of a 15-page document outlining how to form uranium metal
into the shape of a warhead.
A U.S. intelligence estimate late last year said Tehran worked on nuclear
weapons programs until 2003, while Israel and other nations say such work
continued past that date.
Tehran continues uranium enrichment, which can generate the fissile core of
nuclear warheads, and has led to three sets of Security Council sanctions
but insists it is developing the technology only for its other use - power
generation.
It denies ever trying to make atomic arms and last month declared the issue
of its purported nuclear weapons strivings - and any attempt to investigate
them - closed, asserting that information suggesting it ever had a nascent
nuclear arms program is fabricated.
But the agency has signaled it is not giving up on its efforts to
investigate purported military aspects of Tehran's nuclear activities. Other
diplomats told the AP that deputy director general Olli Heinonen planned to
meet in the next few days with Ali-Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate
to the agency, to press for answers.
Ahead of that tentative meeting, Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate
to the IAEA, urged Tehran to end its stonewalling. He told the AP that with
the next IAEA report due in about two months, time was running out for Iran
to "explain these serious indications of troubling activities."
An IAEA report in February said suspicions about most past Iranian nuclear
activities had eased or been laid to rest. But it also noted that Iran had
rejected the information provided by IAEA member nations to the agency for
its probe of suspected weapons research as false and irrelevant.
It also noted that Iran had blocked agency requests to talk to key officials
suspected of possible involvement in past military nuclear programs, among
them one identified by diplomats as nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
They told the AP that he and others active as academics in Iran's civilian
nuclear faculties are suspected by the agency of key roles in secret nuclear
activities with a possible military dimension, including the procurement of
"dual use" equipment.
In a summary recently forwarded to the AP, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, an opposition group that claims to have informants
inside the Iranian government, identified three others as Revolutionary
Guard commander Fereydoon Abbasi, Seyed Jaber Safdari and Mohammed Mehdi
Nejad-Nouri.
It said the three and others are involved in clandestine nuclear
weapons-related research at three Iranian universities: Beheshti; Malek
Ahstar and Imam Hossein.
Asked for verification, a senior diplomat of an IAEA member state said that
a fact check run by his country's relevant agency showed the claims to be
generally accurate. Another senior diplomat also said the information
appeared to be fairly reliable.
Diplomats: China Has Provided IAEA With Intelligence on Iran's Nuke Program
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
VIENNA, Austria - China, an opponent of harsh U.N. Security Council
sanctions against Iran, has nonetheless recently provided the International
Atomic Energy Agency with intelligence linked to Tehran's alleged attempts
to make nuclear arms, diplomats have told The Associated Press.
Beijing, along with Moscow, has acted as a brake within the council,
consistently watering down a U.S.-led push to impose severe penalties on
Tehran for its nuclear defiance since the first set of sanctions was passed
in late 2006.
A Chinese decision to provide information for use in the agency's attempts
to probe Iran's purported nuclear weapons program would appear to reflect
growing international unease about how honest the Islamic republic has been
in denying it ever tried to make such arms.
The new development was revealed by two senior diplomats who closely follow
the IAEA probe of Iran's nuclear program. One commented late last week and
the other Wednesday.
The IAEA declined comment, and nobody was picking up phones at the Iranian
and Chinese missions to the IAEA.
John Bolton, the previous U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and before
that the U.S. undersecretary of state in charge of the Iran nuclear dossier,
said any such Chinese move would be "potentially significant" because of
Beijing's former military ties to Tehran.
In a telephone call from Washington, Bolton said America believed that the
Chinese had helped Iran develop its nuclear program, particularly in one
area of uranium enrichment, "plus they had cooperation on ballistic missile
programs as well."
The diplomats said Beijing was the most surprising entry among a fairly
substantial list of nations recently forwarding information to the agency
that adds to previously provided intelligence, and which could be relevant
in attempts to probe Iran for past or present nuclear weapons research.
But they said several other countries not normally considered to be in the
anti-Iran camp had also done so in recent weeks.
The diplomats - who demanded anonymity because their information was
confidential - declined to name individual nations. But they attributed a
generally increased flow of information to the U.N. nuclear watchdog to
concerns sparked by a multimedia presentation to the 35 IAEA board members
by the agency in February about intelligence previously forwarded by member
states on Iran's alleged clandestine nuclear arms program.
One of the diplomats said the agency also was on the lookout for misleading
information provided it, either inadvertently or in attempts to falsely
implicate Iran.
One example, he said was a document showing experiments with implosion
technology that can be used to detonate a nuclear device. While the document
appeared genuine, it was unclear whether it originated from Iran, said the
diplomat.
Suspected weapons-related work outlined in the February presentation and
IAEA reports preceding it include:
-uranium conversion linked to high explosives testing and designs of a
missile re-entry vehicle, all apparently interconnected through involvement
of officials and institutions;
-procurement of so-called "dual use" equipment and experiments that also
could be used in both civilian and military nuclear programs; and
-Iran's possession of a 15-page document outlining how to form uranium metal
into the shape of a warhead.
A U.S. intelligence estimate late last year said Tehran worked on nuclear
weapons programs until 2003, while Israel and other nations say such work
continued past that date.
Tehran continues uranium enrichment, which can generate the fissile core of
nuclear warheads, and has led to three sets of Security Council sanctions
but insists it is developing the technology only for its other use - power
generation.
It denies ever trying to make atomic arms and last month declared the issue
of its purported nuclear weapons strivings - and any attempt to investigate
them - closed, asserting that information suggesting it ever had a nascent
nuclear arms program is fabricated.
But the agency has signaled it is not giving up on its efforts to
investigate purported military aspects of Tehran's nuclear activities. Other
diplomats told the AP that deputy director general Olli Heinonen planned to
meet in the next few days with Ali-Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate
to the agency, to press for answers.
Ahead of that tentative meeting, Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. delegate
to the IAEA, urged Tehran to end its stonewalling. He told the AP that with
the next IAEA report due in about two months, time was running out for Iran
to "explain these serious indications of troubling activities."
An IAEA report in February said suspicions about most past Iranian nuclear
activities had eased or been laid to rest. But it also noted that Iran had
rejected the information provided by IAEA member nations to the agency for
its probe of suspected weapons research as false and irrelevant.
It also noted that Iran had blocked agency requests to talk to key officials
suspected of possible involvement in past military nuclear programs, among
them one identified by diplomats as nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
They told the AP that he and others active as academics in Iran's civilian
nuclear faculties are suspected by the agency of key roles in secret nuclear
activities with a possible military dimension, including the procurement of
"dual use" equipment.
In a summary recently forwarded to the AP, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, an opposition group that claims to have informants
inside the Iranian government, identified three others as Revolutionary
Guard commander Fereydoon Abbasi, Seyed Jaber Safdari and Mohammed Mehdi
Nejad-Nouri.
It said the three and others are involved in clandestine nuclear
weapons-related research at three Iranian universities: Beheshti; Malek
Ahstar and Imam Hossein.
Asked for verification, a senior diplomat of an IAEA member state said that
a fact check run by his country's relevant agency showed the claims to be
generally accurate. Another senior diplomat also said the information
appeared to be fairly reliable.
