Iran accused of hiding atomic plans
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-02-13 08:43

Iran hid designs for centrifuges capable of producing material for nuclear bombs from the U.N. atomic watchdog, diplomats said on Thursday.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said it was clear what Tehran was up to.

"There's no doubt in our mind that Iran continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program," said Bolton, described by diplomats in Vienna as one of Washington's hardest hard-liners.

But Russia defied U.S. pressure to sever nuclear ties with the Islamic Republic as Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said Moscow would sign a deal with Iran next month to ship nuclear fuel for Iran's Bushehr power plant.

Western diplomats in Vienna said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) uncovered designs for an advanced enrichment centrifuge that should have been mentioned in Iran's October declaration of its atomic program.

Tehran said at the time its declaration was true and complete and always denies it was trying to make a nuclear bomb.

"The burden of proof is on the one who makes the allegations," Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters. "Certainly we are not following any program to produce weapons."

Next week, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to circulate two reports on U.N. inspections, one on Iran and the other on Libya, which admitted in December to pursuing weapons of mass destruction and agreed to voluntarily give them up.

Diplomats said there were striking parallels between nuclear programs of Iran and Libya. They said the absence of the centrifuge designs from the October declaration was a serious omission.

"This, in fact, is the smoking gun," said Henry Sokolski, head of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He said the IAEA governing board should report Iran to the U.N. Security Council in March which can impose economic sanctions.

In contrast to his harsh words about Iran, Bolton said the United States is considering lifting its sanctions on Libya though the timing would depend on how fast Tripoli disarms.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told a news conference in Berlin that he wanted to wait for the IAEA report in March.

Asked if more pressure must be exerted on Iran, he Blair said: "...the International Atomic Energy Agency are committed in Iran and will produce a report...That report will allow us to go through all these issues. I think probably rather than me commenting at this stage, we should wait until they make there report."

RUSSIA: NO EVIDENCE IRAN WANTS A-BOMB

Tehran and Moscow have been locked in months of tough talks over nuclear shipments for the $800 million Bushehr plant Russia has helped to build despite repeated U.S. accusations that Iran is secretly trying to acquire nuclear arms.

Rumyantsev said he hoped Russia and Iran would ink their deal, which also requires Iran to return spent nuclear fuel to Russia, during a visit to Tehran in late March.

"The United States has criticized us and will continue to criticize us," Rumyantsev said. "They say Iran seeks nuclear weapons under the cover of our peaceful technology transfer, but we keep telling them they've got that wrong."

Several Western diplomats sharply disagreed with Russia's stance on Iran, which they said was still not cooperating with the U.N. watchdog agency.

One Western diplomat said the discovery of designs for gas centrifuges was not the result of Iranian cooperation but "good inspection work by the IAEA." He said Iran only admitted it had the designs after the IAEA showed evidence it knew it had them.

Gas centrifuges spin at supersonic speeds to separate fissile uranium 235 from the non-fissile uranium isotopes.

The blueprints in question are based on the so-called "G2" centrifuge developed by the British-German-Dutch enrichment consortium Urenco. There were no indications Urenco, which denied selling technology to Iran, provided the designs.

Pakistan is known to have both the G1 and G2. Diplomats said they would not be surprised if they came from Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, who admitted last week to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Gary Samore, head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and an adviser to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, said the discovery of the designs raises the question of whether Iran has a hidden enrichment facility.

"There's always been a suspicion that Iran got the more advanced (G2) and there's some concern that they might be building an undeclared facility someplace that would utilize both the G1 and G2 for the production of weapons grade uranium," Samore told Reuters.

Samore and several diplomats said they were convinced Khan had used an extensive nuclear black market to offer Iran the same designs for nuclear warheads that Libya bought for $50 million. The diplomats said they believed Iran bought them.

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