A senior Iranian lawmaker accused the head of the UN nuclear watchdog of passing
confidential information about Iran’s nuclear activities to Israel, Iran’s IRNA
news agency reported on Sunday.
IRNA cited Javad Jahangirzadeh as saying
that the International Atomic Energy Agency had not complied with its
obligations toward Iran’s nuclear data, and had committed an offense by
providing information to Iran’s enemies.
In the latest sign of strained
relations with the IAEA, Jahangirzadeh, a member of both the Iranian
parliament’s presiding board of the parliament for Oromieh, said the director
general of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano would be to blame if Iran reduced its ties
with the body, according to the report.
“Amano’s repeated trips to Tel
Aviv and asking the Israeli officials’ views about Iran’s nuclear activities
indicates that Iran’s nuclear information has been disclosed to the Zionist
regime and other enemies of the Islamic Republic,” Jahangirzadeh was quoted as
saying in an exclusive interview with IRNA.
“If the agency’s actions lead
to Iran cutting cooperation with this international body, all responsibility
will be with the IAEA director general,” said Jahangirzadeh, adding that the
IAEA had not cooperated with Iran regarding its nuclear
activities.
“Rather, there have been cases where the agency’s inspectors
visiting Iran’s nuclear facilities have spied on behalf of Tel Aviv and
Washington,” he added.
The IAEA was not immediately available to comment
on Jahangirzadeh’s allegation.
Last week, Iranian nuclear energy chief
Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani said terrorists might have infiltrated the Vienna-based
agency.
He suggested the IAEA included too much sensitive information
about Iran’s nuclear program in its reports that he said could be used by
saboteurs.
Western diplomats dismissed Abbasi-Davani’s allegations as an
attempt to distract attention from the agency’s bid to gain access to a site in
Iran it suspects was used for nuclear weapons research.
Iran blames
Israel and its Western allies for the assassination of nuclear scientists in
Iran, including an unsuccessful attempt on Abbasi- Davani in November 2010. It
also blames them for computer viruses that appeared designed to damage Iran’s
nuclear machinery.
The 35-nation board of the agency censured Iran
earlier this month for defying international demands to curb uranium enrichment
and failing to address mounting disquiet about its suspected research into
atomic bombs.
The resolution prompted the speaker of Iran’s parliament,
Ali Larijani, to cast doubt on the benefit of Iran’s membership in the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty in an interview last week with the Financial
Times.
Sunday’s edition of Iran’s government-affiliated Keyhan daily
remarked on the interview, in which Larijani said that there is a “serious
discussion among Iran’s intellectuals about the benefits [of being a signatory
to the NPT].”
“The Israelis did not join the NPT and they do not
recognize the IAEA. They are doing what they want, producing atomic bombs, and
no one questions it. But countries that observe its regulations face a lot of
pressure.
So it is logical to ask whether anyone is motivated to join the
IAEA,” Larijani said.
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards,
Mohammad Ali Jafari, told a news conference last week that Tehran would withdraw
from the NPT if attacked by Israel – which has increased hints it may launch air
strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Iran’s parliament does not decide
matters of foreign policy and national security, which are the province of
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Also on Sunday, Germany’s Siemens
AG denied allegations by an Iranian lawmaker that it planted explosives in
equipment sold to Iran for use in its nuclear program.
“Siemens does not
have any business ties with Iran’s nuclear program and does not supply any
technical equipment for it,” a spokesman for the Munich-based multinational
company said.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament’s
national security and foreign policy committee, said on Saturday that
intelligence and security officials had detected explosive material inside
devices supplied for Iran’s nuclear activities.
“It was planned that
these devices would explode once used and damage all of our systems, but in the
end with the knowledge of our experts, this enemy conspiracy was foiled,”
Boroujerdi was quoted as saying by ICANA, Iran’s parliamentary news
agency.
“The Siemens company must be held accountable for its actions,”
he said.
Such an “enemy conspiracy” would have had to be plotted and
acted on before early 1979, the time of the Islamic Revolution.
The
German Kraftwerk Union AG, a joint venture between Siemens and AEG Telefunken,
began construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in 1975, after signing a
$4 billion-6b. contract.
However, work stopped on the plant in January
1979 and Kraftwerk pulled out of the project in July that year, two months after
Iranians voted to become an Islamic Republic. One reactor was left half-complete
and the other around 85 percent finished.
In 1995, Russia’s Atomic Energy
ministry signed a contract to complete the work and last month Russian
contractor Atomstroyexport announced the first power unit was operating at 100
percent capacity.
Meanwhile also on Sunday, the UK’s Sunday Times
reported that the Revolutionary Guards discovered an “electronic monitoring
device” near the Fordow nuclear site in northern Iran last month.
Citing
unnamed Western intelligence sources, the Sunday Times said the Revolutionary
Guards did not report the discovery. The Jerusalem Post could not independently
verify the report.
Iran has previously accused Israel and Western
governments of trying to sabotage its atomic program by assassinating nuclear
scientists and planting computer viruses.