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Document Shows Tehran Pursued a Military Nuclear Program after 2003


[Le Monde-France/NCR-Iran] Laurent Zecchini - Le Monde has obtained documents showing that Tehran has pursued a military nuclear program after 2003, contrary to an American National Intelligence Estimate published in December 2007. On Feb. 25, Olli Heinonen, the Finnish Deputy Director General of the IAEA, presented evidence of the existence of an Iranian military nuclear program. A letter in 2004 by Engineer Mahdi Khaniki, one of the main interlocutors of the IAEA and former Iranian ambassador to Syria, to Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, vice president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), confirms the charge. The letter refers to purchase orders for the spare parts used in the development of centrifuges, copies of which were to be delivered to the IAEA. "However, portions of these contracts, which this writer [Khaniki] viewed at the Ministry of Defense, were crossed out with black lines and the quantities did not appear." This letter represents clear evidence of the Defense Ministry's involvement in the Iranian nuclear project. This confirms suspicions about the military nature of the program, while attesting to the efforts of the Iranians to conceal it.
2008-04-07 01:00:00
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