U.S. rejects Israeli report of Iranian nuclear weapons

MOSCOW, April 13 (JTA) — The debate over Russian involvement in Iran’s military program is heating up once again. The U.S. Defense Department said last week that it has “no evidence whatsoever” that Iran acquired several nuclear warheads in the early 1990s from a former Soviet republic. The statement came in response to a report in an Israeli newspaper that warheads supplied by Kazahkstan were maintained in Iran by Russian experts. The Jerusalem Post report was based on Iranian government documents that contained high-level correspondence, including at least one that is reportedly signed by a senior Iranian intelligence official. The documents appeared to support 1992 U.S. congressional reports that Iran received enriched uranium and four nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan with help from the Russian underworld, the Post reported. According to the Post, the documents were authenticated by American experts and were being studied by Israeli officials. A Russian governmental spokesman dismissed the Israeli newspaper report as “nonsense.” Meanwhile, three foreign citizens suspected of attempting to smuggle to Iran dual-purpose technology have been arrested in Moscow for allegedly selling 22 tons of steel that could be used to help make ballistic missiles. The steel would reportedly have been shipped to Iran via Azerbaijan using several Russian private companies. In an interview this week, Nikolai Kovalyov, director of the Federal Security Service, which is a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said that his agency had recently foiled several attempts to smuggle dual-purpose technology to Iran. Israel and the United States have repeatedly criticized Russia’s nuclear ties to Iran. The United States has also denounced plans by Gazprom, a state-owned Russian oil monopoly, to develop oil fields in the Muslim state. Israel has voiced its concern that Russia might be assisting Iran in developing Tehran’s ballistic missiles program. Earlier this year, the Kremlin announced that it had stopped supplying missile technology to Iran.