Iranian firm got parts to enrich uranium: report

AFP, Washington, April 3, 2010 – The IAEA and Western intelligence agencies are investigating how an Iranian firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges to enrich uranium, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The probe was launched after the International Atomic Energy Agency received an email on January 14 alleging that illicit goods were being sent to Iran in a ’careful and secret’ way, through an intermediary representing a Chinese company based near Shanghai, the Journal said.
The email said Iran’s Javedan Mehr Toos (JMT) obtained the valves in recent weeks from Vikas Kumar Talwar, an intermediary representing Zheijiang Ouhai Trade Corp. of China, a subsidiary of the Wenzhou-based Jinzhou Group, the newspaper said.
An investigator familiar with the IAEA probe told the Journal that Iran has made about 10 attempts to acquire uranium enrichment valves in the last two years.
’Some deliveries got through, others didn’t,’ he said.
The special hardware was made by a French company that was owned by US industrial conglomerate Tyco International until December. Both firms told the Journal they knew nothing about the case.
Officials told the newspaper that manufacturers’ products sometimes arrive in Iran without the makers’ knowledge.
The report came as US President Barack Obama’s administration has stepped up pressure for China and other members of the United Nations Security Council to agree to slap a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran that could further restrict suspect shipments headed for the Islamic republic.
China has been the most reluctant of the five countries that can veto UN sanctions to support the proposed measures.