Iran 'tried to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan'

[Neo]

Iran 'tried to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan'

Iran attempted to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan in 1990 but a putative deal was rejected at the last moment by the former head of the Pakistani military, according to an official transcript leaked in Washington.

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
15 Mar 2010

Iran had struck an agreement with Pakistan's army chief to buy "nuclear bombs" for $10 billion (£6.6 billion) but Pakistani officials pulled out of the offer when an Iranian delegation travelled to Islamabad to collect the material in 1990.

Adml Ali Shamkhani, the former Iranian defence minister, attempted to finalise the sale in a meeting with Adml Iftikhar Ahmed Sirohey, then chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs, according to an 11-page statement by Pakistan scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that has been made public for the first time.

It said: "He had come to collect the promised nuclear bombs."

The confession was obtained by Simon Henderson, a fellow at the Washington Institute think tank.

"This is the first real indication that Iran wants - and has always wanted - a nuclear bomb, not just nuclear technology.

"Iran's motivation is also clear: after the experience of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, it decided it needed the ultimate deterrent."

Gen Mirza Aslam Beg, the Pakistan Army chief who had reached a deal with the Iranians, was said to have revolted against the decision and demanded that then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto go through with the deal.

Pakistan decided to provide a pair of centrifuge machines that refine uranium instead of the bombs. That shipment through a middle man laid the basis for Iran's current nuclear programme which has put the country in violation of UN resolutions.

Gen Beg denied he agreed to sell a nuclear weapons to Iran but he has in the past said Iran should have a nuclear deterrent.

Pakistan's government said it had not hidden any information it had gathered from Khan, who has been under various forms of house arrest since 2004, from America or its allies.

"It is yet another repackaging of fiction, which surface occasionally for purposes that are self-evident," said Abdul Basit, its foreign office spokesman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Pakistan.html

[Neo]

Iran denies quest for nuclear weapons

Global Times
March 17 2010]

Iran's Foreign Ministry Tuesday rejected a news report saying it had attempted to acquire nuclear weapons with the help of Pakistan in the late 1980s, saying such reports were a feeble effort by the West to put pressure on the Islamic republic over its nuclear program.

Ramin Mehmanparast, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that the United States is trying to deprive Iranians from their right to peaceful nuclear power.

"Such reports show the United States and the West's failure to put pressure on Iran (over its nuclear program)," Mehmanparast was quoted as saying.

According to The Washington Post, Pakistan gave Iran bomb-related drawings, parts for centrifuges to purify uranium and a secret worldwide list of suppliers, all in lieu of weapons. This is according to an 11-page narrative prepared by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program, in 2004 during his initial house arrest.

"It was a deal worth almost $10 billion that had been offered by Iran," Khan wrote in the account.

An Iranian delegation, led by Ali Shamkhani, a senior military officer, came to Islamabad, Pakistan, seeking help on nuclear weapons in the late 1980s, the Post cited a former Pakistani official as saying, without giving a name.

The former official also said Khan, acting with the knowledge of other top officials, then accelerated a secret stream of aid.

Iran and Iraq fought a bitter war between 1980 and 1988.

The Pakistani government also rejected the Post's report.

"It is yet another repackaging of fiction, which surfaces occasionally for purposes that are self-evident," said Abdul Basit, its foreign office spokesman.

http://world.globaltimes.cn/mid-east...03/513680.html