I.A.E.A. investigates Russian's role in Iran nuke programme

New York, Oct 10 (PTI) International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments related to detonating a nuclear weapon, a media report said Friday.

As part of the investigation, inspectors at the
International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) are seeking
information from the scientist, who they believe acted on his
own as an adviser on the experiments described in a lengthy
document obtained by the agency, American and European
officials told the New York Times.

The unidentified officials, the Times said had made it
clear they did not think the scientist was working on behalf
of the Russian government.

Still, it is the first time that the nuclear agency has
suggested that Iran may have received help from a foreign
weapons scientist in developing nuclear arms, it added.
The American and European officials told the paper that

the new document, written in Persian, was part of an
accumulation of evidences that Iran had worked toward
developing a nuclear weapon, despite its claims that its
atomic work has been aimed at producing electrical power.
In February, in a closed-door briefing at the agency

headquarters in Vienna, its chief nuclear inspector presented
diplomats from several countries with newly declassified
documents, sketches and even a video that he said raised
questions about whether Iran had tried to design a weapon.

Among the data presented by Olli Heinonen, the chief
inspector, were indications that the Iranians had worked on
exploding detonators that are critical for the firing of most
nuclear weapons, the paper said.

The Iranian envoy at the briefing called the charges
"groundless" and protested that the tests were for
conventional arms.

Heinonen, however, called the shape and timing involved
in the firing systems and detonators "key components of
nuclear weapons."

At the same time, the paper said Heinonen acknowledged
that the agency "did not have sufficient information at this
stage to conclude whether the allegations are groundless or
the data fabricated."

The new document under investigation offers further
evidence of such experiments, the Western officials were
quoted as saying.

Iranian officials, the paper noted, have said repeatedly
that the documents the agency is using in its investigation of
Iran's past nuclear activities are fabrications or forgeries,
and that any experiments were not related to nuclear weapons.

Iran has said the same about the new evidence, although
the agency has not shown the full document to government
officials in Tehran.

The officials said that the conditions under which the
inspectors obtained the document prohibited them from
revealing it in full to the Iranians, out of fear that doing
so could expose the source of the document.

These restrictions, the Times noted, present a problem
for Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency's director general, who is
pressing Iran to reveal its past nuclear activity.

"I cannot accuse a person without providing him or
her with the evidence," he said last year.

Although officials would not say how they had obtained
the new document, it was first publicly mentioned in an agency
report in May as one of 18 documents presented to Iran in
connection with suspected nuclear weapons studies. PTI DS