Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi did not go into details, but repeated Tehran’s claims that its efforts to acquire nuclear technology were strictly energy-related and it was never intended for weapons development.
“We purchased some (nuclear) parts from some dealers, but we don’t know what was the source or which country they came from,” Asefi told reporters. “It happened that some of the dealers were from some subcontinent countries.”
Last week, Malaysian police released a report summing up a three-month investigation that said Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, sold uranium enrichment equipment via middlemen on the subcontinent to Iran for $3 million in the mid-1990s.
Khan has admitted selling technology and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The report also said that Khan’s network had sold the uranium compound UF6 to Libya and helped it set up an enrichment plant.
Asefi said Iran had already told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that it had bought some equipment. But because it was working through middlemen, it didn’t know from whom.
