Faced with the imminent release of a report by international nuclear inspectors, Iran acknowledged publicly on Sunday that it secretly purchased components for its nuclear program from a network of international suppliers, but continued to insist that its program was for electricity production, not nuclear weapons.
The statement, by the Foreign Ministry, came after the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rohani, met in Vienna with the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei.
European and US diplomats say they believe that ElBaradei summarized the results of a report the IAEA is expected to release this week about Iran's nuclear program, including details that Iran withheld last fall when, under pressure from Europe and the US, it revealed 18 years of nuclear activity.
"The Iranians are admitting to the dimensions of their program bit by bit as they are confronted with individual pieces of evidence," said one senior US official involved in the investigations of the nuclear trading network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani weapon.
"Compare it to what the Libyans are doing. I'm convinced the Libyans are voluntarily showing us everything," the official said, referring to Libya's decision to dismantle all of its nuclear weapons program.
The official added: "The Iranians are still stonewalling."
Reuters reported on Sunday that the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, Hamid Reza Asefi, said that "we have bought some things from some dealers but we don't know what the source was or what country they came from."
He insisted that every purchase had been reported to the IAEA.
Iran's statements are significant because few US or European officials say they understand how far the country's nuclear program has advanced, or how close the country may be to producing a nuclear weapon. Because Khan's network sold Libya equipment, full warhead designs and the raw uranium gas that must be enriched to produce bomb fuel, US officials say they assume that Iran received the same package of goods.
On Friday, the Malaysian police released a report of its interrogations of B.S.A. Tahir, whom US President George W. Bush has identified as Khan's chief lieutenant. In the report, the police quoted Tahir as saying that Iran paid about US$3 million for parts to manufacture centrifuges, which turn the uranium into highly enriched weapons-grade fuel. The parts arrived in Iran in 1994 or 1995, officials said, about seven years after the first transactions between Iran and Pakistan. That shipment was something of a surprise to US officials, who until recently only had evidence of Pakistani shipments to Iran in the 1980s.
It now appears that the later shipments were part of an effort to sell Iran a more sophisticated type of centrifuge, called a "P-2," which enriches uranium more efficiently than the first models sold to Tehran. The Iranians say they informed the IAEA last fall that they had worked experimentally with the P-2 design, but some agency officials say the information was only passed along after it became clear that Khan was being interrogated.
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
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