Congo-Kinshasa: Iran Sought Uranium From Congo, Says UN

IRAN

is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, a probe has revealed.

A United Nations (UN) report, dated July 18, said there was "no doubt" that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.

Tanzanian customs officials told British newspaper The Sunday Times that it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.

The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran's presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran's continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel.

It also comes on a day Iran vowed to expand its atomic fuel work and warned that any UN sanctions aimed at halting its uranium enrichment would incur a painful riposte, including a possible cut in oil exports.

Chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Iran would expand the number of atomic centrifuges it was running. Centrifuges enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic speeds.

Such remarks flatly reject a UN Security Council resolution demanding Tehran halt its nuclear work by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions.

The west fears Iran will use enriched uranium to make atomic bombs.

Iran

said in April that it had produced enriched uranium from a cascade of 164 centrifuges.

The islamic state told the International Atomic Energy Agency it would start installing 3000 centrifuges later this year, enough to produce material for a nuclear warhead in one year.

A senior Tanzanian customs official said the illicit uranium shipment was found hidden in a consignment of coltan, a rare mineral used to make chips in cellphones. The shipment was destined for smelting in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, delivered via Bandar Abbas, Iran's biggest port.

In a nuclear reactor, uranium 238 can be used to breed plutonium used in nuclear weapons.

The customs officer, who spoke to The Sunday Times on condition he was not named, said: "The container was put in a secure part of the port and it was later taken away, by the Americans, I think, or at least with their help. We have all been told not to talk to anyone about this."

The report by the UN investigation team was submitted to the chairman of the UN sanctions committee, Oswaldo de Rivero, at the end of last month and will be considered soon by the security council.

Lubumbashi is the capital of mineral-rich Katanga province, home of the Shinkolobwe uranium mine that produced material for the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The mine has officially been closed since 1961, before the country's independence from Belgium, but the UN investigators have told the security council that they found evidence of illegal mining still going on at the site.

In 1999 there were reports that the Congolese authorities had tried to re-open the mine with the help of North Korea.

In recent years, miners are said to have broken open the lids at the mine and extracted ore from the shafts, while police and local authorities turned a blind eye.