IRAN: Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and a nuclear bomb design from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad, an exiled Iranian opposition group said yesterday.
The group, which has given accurate information before, also said Iran is secretly enriching uranium at a military site previously unknown to the United Nations, despite promising France, Britain and Germany that it would halt all such work.
"[Abdul Qadeer] Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU [highly enriched uranium] in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters.
"I would doubt it was given enough for a weapon," he added.
Mr Soleiman said Mr Khan, who ran a global nuclear black market until it was shut down earlier this year, also gave Iran a Chinese-developed warhead design some time between 1994 and 1996.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said Mr Khan's network gave Libya the bomb design and is trying to find out whether Iran got it too. There is no proof it did.
A Pakistani military spokesman commented: "We are not responding to every allegation that comes through the media."
"If true, it's significant," an EU diplomat said.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said the IAEA followed up "every solid lead". That will not be easy, because the UN agency has been denied access to Mr Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan.
Diplomats in Vienna say the NCRI has been the best source of information on Tehran's undeclared nuclear programme.
Washington also accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge.
The NCRI is listed by Washington as a terrorist group. The EU has promised to do the same under its nuclear deal with Iran.
The group established its reputation as a whistleblower in August 2002 when it revealed an undeclared enrichment plant at Natanz and another site at Arak. The group has also revealed other sites.
The NCRI said Iran was enriching uranium, purifying it for use for fuel or bombs, at a site in north eastern Tehran under a covert arms programme.
"It continues to enrich uranium as we speak," Mr Soleiman said. - (Reuters)