Britain offers Iran 'clear choice' on nuclear power

NUKEWARS

atoms for peace

Iranian busted for buying US military equipment
An Iranian man was charged Monday with buying helicopter engines and advanced cameras for fighter bombers in the United States and shipping them to Iran in violation of US sanctions, authorities said. Hossein Ali Khoshnevisrad, 55, was arrested Saturday at San Francisco International Airport as he arrived from an international destination, the US Justice Department said. He was arraigned here on Monday on charges of illegally exporting and conspiracy to export US goods to Iran, charges that carry up to 65 years in prison, the department said. In an affidavit, the government alleged that Khoshnevisrad and his Iranian company, Ariasa, AG, bought 17 turbo shaft helicopter engines from Rolls-Royce in Indiana in 2007 for 4.27 million dollars through an unidentified Irish intermediary. The engines allegedly were shipped to a book publisher in Malaysia and later shipped on to Iran, where they were received by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company, HESA. The US Treasury Department has identified HESA as a company controlled by the Iranian defense ministry and armed forces, and as having provided support to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Justice Department said. Khoshnevisrad also was alleged to have bought several US-made panorama cameras in 2006 through a Dutch aviation parts supplier. The cameras were designed for F-4E Phantom fighter bombers of a kind that Iran has. The unnamed Dutch company placed the order through a Pennsylvania company, telling it that the Netherlands would be the end user, according to the Justice Department. "In August 2006, a representative of the Dutch company notified Khoshnevisrad that he had received the cameras from the United States and that the cameras would soon be shipped to Tehran aboard an Iran Air flight," the Justice Department alleged. The Justice Department did not say whether the cameras arrived in Iran or who they were shipped to there.

by Staff Writers
London (AFP) March 17, 2009
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appealed Tuesday for Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme in return for international assistance in developing nuclear power.

Brown said the Islamic republic had a "clear choice" between cooperating with the international community or facing tougher sanctions over its enrichment activities.

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, however, described Brown's comments as "very contradictory" and insisted Iran's nuclear programme was peaceful.

He told an international conference in London that Iran represents a crucial test for the world as it faces the prospects of a huge expansion in nuclear power generation in response to climate change.

"Iran is a test case for this new philosophy of the right to civil nuclear power with sanctions for rule breakers," Brown said, adding it had "the same absolute right to a peaceful civil nuclear programme as any other country. "Indeed the UK and the international community stand ready to help Iran achieve it.

"But let me be equally clear that Iran's current nuclear programme is unacceptable. Iran has concealed nuclear activities, refused to cooperate with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and flouted UN Security Council resolutions."

The United States and the European Union fear Iran is covertly trying to develop nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran rejects.

Brown said: "Iran therefore faces a clear choice -- continue in this way and face further and tougher sanctions, or change to a UN-overseen civil nuclear energy programme that will bring the greatest benefits to its citizens.

"I hope that Iran will make the right choice."

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi, though, was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying: "The British prime minister's comments are very contradictory."

"All Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful and supervised by the IAEA. It is completely unfounded to say Iran is a proliferation threat."

Brown told the audience of scientists and diplomats that "like it or not" the world will increasingly have to switch to nuclear power to generate electricity if targets on slashing carbon emissions are to be met.

He said that if Iran dropped its defiant stance and agreed to cooperate with the international community it could be part of a number of states who could benefit from assistance in developing their civil nuclear power sectors.

"We have to create a new international system to help non-nuclear states acquire the new sources of energy they need.

"Because -- whether we like it or not -- we will not meet the challenges of climate change without the far wider use of civil nuclear power."

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NUKEWARS

Presidential hopeful Mousavi lauds Iran's scientific gains

Tehran (AFP) March 14, 2009
Former Iranian premier Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is planning to run for the presidency, said on Saturday that gains in nuclear and space sciences were the result of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

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