EXCLUSIVE: IAEA expert details Argentina's early support of Iran
nuclear program
UPDATED ON
Two attacks in the 1990's are alleged to be connected to Hezbollah
after Argentina distanced itself from Iran
Argentina was a quiet supporter of Iran's burgeoning nuclear program
during the 1980's when the two nations were working to advance bilateral
relations, Darío Jinchuk, an independent consultant for the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and former Director of International Affairs at the
Argentine National Commission of Atomic Energy (CNEA) told i24NEWS in
an interview from Vienna on Friday.
Jinchuk detailed to i24NEWS the technical and commercial
cooperation between Argentina and Iran during the infancy of Iran's nuclear
program, which was restarted under the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The program had a clear objective: to obtain a military nuclear
arsenal.
Khomeini's predecessor, the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had originally
commenced the sensible initiative during the Cold War as part of a US policy to
counterbalance the expansion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
“The Iranian nuclear program started in the 50’s, as many other
countries did, helped by the US policy known as ‘Atoms for Peace’, when
President Eisenhower attempted to spread the pacific use of nuclear energy,”
Mr. Jinchuk explained.
“With the help of the United States, Germany and France, [Iran's]
first reactor was built. It was the first stage of the Iranian nuclear plan,”
he added.
Jinchuk, a physician graduated from both the University of Buenos
Aires (UBA) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that after being cut
off from Western aid following the Islamic Revolution, Iran officially
approached Argentina for contracts related to the nuclear fuel cycle and heavy
water, as well as for help finishing its Bushehr nuclear power plant which had
been bombed during the Iran-Iraq war.
“After the revolution all the foreign western aid stops and it’s then
when Iran starts with an undeclared program, accepting the help of Abdul Qadir
Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear program,” Jinchuk explains.
According to Jinchuk, Qadir Khan was known for “transferring
technology for non-peaceful purposes, in order to enrich high levels of uranium
to manufacture bombs to Iran and Libya and other countries.”
“By the 1980’s, Iran was already a ‘medium development capacity’
country with an ambitious nuclear program for peaceful use,” Jinchuk stated.
"Iran officially approached Argentina in the 1980's, interested
in the nuclear fuel cycle and heavy water, as well as helping to finish the
Bushehr nuclear power plant. These were the main topics of talks between
Argentina and Iran in the 1980's,” he recalled.
“There was a previous approach in the 1970's [under the Shah’s
ruling]," he adds, describing a contract "between Iran and five
individual Argentine scientists" who had been thrown out of Argentine
institutions by the government.
"They gave expertise in a private capacity,” Jinchuk revealed.
Jinchuk declined to provide the identities of the five individuals or
to give further detail, saying only that “now they are all dead, except
one."
Iran and Argentina enjoyed a fruitful relationship long after the
abrupt end of former Argentinian president Raúl Alfonsín's government in 1989
and the rise of Carlos Menem, a charismatic leader who would turn towards a
pro-US foreign policy and encourage pro-market reforms, including
privatizations, free enterprise and a smaller role by the state within the
domestic economy.
Menem's approach led to Argentina's distancing itself from Shia Iran,
reportedly under US pressure.
The three nuclear contracts were suspended, bringing to an abrupt end
the era of Iran-Argentina nuclear relations and ushering in a new one marked by
a string of terror attacks in the South American country.
In 1992, a suicide driver smashed into the Israeli embassy in Buenos
Aires, killing 22 people and injuring over 300 more.
Then, in 1994, the AMIA Jewish community center in the heart of the
Argentine capital was bombed, killing 85 and injuring 300 others in the worst
attack in the country's history.
To this day, local courts believe the two attacks were connected and
perpetrated by Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
A 500-page document written by prosecutor Alberto Nisman in 2006,
suggested the cancellation of the nuclear agreements as one of the main reasons
for the attacks.
Nisman would later be found mysteriously dead in his hotel room, days
after filing a report accusing Argentine government officials of protecting
high-ranking Iranian officials from prosecution over the AMIA bombing in
exchange for oil and other trade benefits.
Jinchuk, given his first-hand knowledge and rank within Argentina's
nuclear agency, was summoned to testify in the case before the prosecution.
"At the time of the AMIA bombing, we were in a period of
negotiations with Iran over the suspension of those [nuclear] contracts. Iran
was asking for big compensation and Argentina trying to pay as little as
possible,” Jinchuk said.
Jinchuk was careful, however, not to draw a direct correlation between
the attack and the annulment of the Iranian contracts.
“I don’t have a reliable information that allows me to say whether it
was Iran, or if the reason for the attack was the suspension of the
contracts," he said.
He said he was certain that at least during the first negotiations and
instances, the country's mutual cooperation was for trade purposes.
“Argentina received about 5.5 million dollars for the contract for
fuel for the research reactor; 10 million dollars for the purification plant,
and 15 million dollars for the contract for the manufacture of combustible
elements,” Jinchuk asseverated.
Another aspect of the agreement implied a technical exchange program
under which “Iran sent some technicians and scientists for training to
Argentina," Jinchuk said.
"This could not be done without the approval of the state,"
he insisted.
Before the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear
deal signed between Iran and P5+1 countries, rumors of supposed clandestine
program for transferring nuclear materials and technologies to Iran via
Argentina and Venezuela.
The alleged scheme was said to originate in Argentina, with materials
and technologies passed through Venezuelan Commander Hugo Chavez -- a close
ally of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and via secret flights
chartered to Iran.
“There were no technological transference from Argentina to Venezuela
that could be ‘triangulated’. The only contacts with Venezuela was only for the
selling of nuclear medicine, cobalt therapy equipments,” Jinchuk said of the
supposed scheme.
US President Donald Trump de-certified the Iran deal in mid-October
instructing his administration to address what he says are the deal’s “serious
flaws,” including permitting Iran to conduct research and development of
improved uranium enrichment techniques while its ballistic missiles program
races ahead.
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