IRAN: The National Council of Resistance of Iran (better known as the Peoples' Mujaheddin) is still considered a terrorist group by US and European governments.
But that did not prevent this main opposition group to the Iranian regime holding a press conference in a luxury hotel here yesterday to reveal detailed knowledge of Iran's alleged "neutron initiator" project to make detonators for nuclear weapons.
Despite the NCRI's dubious status, the intelligence services of Israel and the US will pay close attention to the statement made by Mohammad Mohaddessin, the head of the group's foreign affairs section.
In August 2002, the NCRI divulged that Iran had built a huge underground enrichment plant at Natanz, 250 km south of Tehran, and that it planned to build a heavy water plant at Arak.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is responsible for enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, gained access to those sites six months later and were amazed at the extent of the installations. Mr Mohaddessin said the NCRI recently notified the IAEA of all the information he released yesterday. Referring to the new allegations, Mr Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the IAEA, would only say: "We follow up every credible lead."
A Western diplomat in Vienna described the NCRI's reliability on Iran's nuclear programme as "hit and miss". "They've had some famous successes, like Natanz and Arak," he said. "And they've had a lot of information that hasn't panned out at all." The diplomat recalled that false information about Iraq's alleged WMD programmes was also disseminated by exiled opposition groups.
Mr Mohaddessin said his information came from "very extensive clandestine networks of mujaheddin inside Iran". Two months ago, he claims, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the "Supreme Guide of the Iranian revolution", ordered the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation to produce a nuclear weapon by the end of 2005. After Tehran made an agreement with the EU to "suspend" its uranium enrichment programme last November, Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as saying on television: "Iran will never stop its nuclear programme. That is our red line." On January 31st, Iran said its freeze on uranium enrichment would be short-lived.
"Their main problem is getting enough enriched uranium," Mr Mohaddessin explained yesterday. Tehran needs three things to produce nuclear weapons: nuclear explosives, launching systems and a neutron detonator to trigger a fission chain-reaction.
In London in December, the NCRI claimed that Tehran has a top-secret Ghadr missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Yesterday, it said that the Islamic Republic has tested neutron detonators in laboratory conditions and will soon be able to produce about one dozen industrially.
Mr Mohaddessin said the regime has transformed bismuth metal into polonium-210 by irradiating it. Polonium-210, when combined with a toxic metal called beryllium, creates a neutron detonator for nuclear bombs.
Tehran has imported small amounts of beryllium from Britain, which was reported to the IAEA, Mr Mohaddessin said. But the Foreign Purchase Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, headed by Brig Gen Mahmoud Tourani, last year imported about 20 kg of beryllium from another country, and hid that transaction from the IAEA.
Other sources of beryllium were strategic metals mines inside Iran.
Mr Mohaddessin said beryllium has few civilian applications. This was disputed by the diplomat in Vienna, who said it is used in golf clubs, aircraft engines and semi-conductors. The IAEA is believed to have been investigating the Iranians' use of beryllium for most of the past year.
The IAEA says it has gained access to every site it has wanted to visit in Iran. But the agency would not simply wander around the hundreds of buildings in the huge Lavizan II site where Mr Mohaddessin says the regime is experimenting in uranium enrichment by laser technology, and building neutron initiators.
"The IAEA doesn't just go knocking on doors," the western diplomat in Vienna said. "It's a very large country. They need information that's supported by other information. There's a difference between harassment and doing robust inspections."
The Lavizan II site is about 25 km from central Tehran. It is a Revolutionary Guard base and contains an ammunition factory and logistical facilities, as well as the nuclear laboratories, according to the NCRI.
Mr Mohaddessin blamed what he called Europe's "appeasement policy" for enabling Iran to advance its nuclear weapons programme since the EU made its first agreement with Tehran in October 2003.