LOC13:39
10:39 GMT
LONDON, April 3 (KUNA) -- China has betrayed one of its closest allies by
providing the UN with intelligence on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear
technology, diplomats revealed here Thursday.
Concern over Tehran's secretive research programme has increased in recent
weeks after officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
UN's nuclear watchdog, discovered that Iran had obtained information on how to
manufacture nuclear-armed weapons, The Daily Telegraph newspaper said.
Beijing is believed to have decided to assist the inspectors after
documents seized from Iranian officials included blueprints for "shaping"
uranium metal into warheads, the testing of high explosives used to detonate
radioactive material and the procurement of dual-use technology.
Much of the new material was presented to the governors of the Vienna-based
IAEA last February. That meeting is said to have triggered China's change of
heart, the paper added.
Diplomats described Beijing's decision to provide material related to Iran
to the IAEA as a potentially significant breakthrough.
Chinese designs for centrifuges that refine uranium into a "weaponised"
state have been found in Iran but these are thought to have come through a
network controlled by the disgraced Pakistani scientist AQ Khan.
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the UN, said suspicions over
the leakage of technology from China to Iran had long centred on uranium
enrichment technology and their bilateral ballistic missile trade.
A spokesman for the IAEA said it did not comment on intelligence it
received from its members.(end)
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KUNA 031339 Apr 08NNNN