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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Denies Blast at Key Nuclear Site

2013-01-29

[An Nahar] Iran has strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! reports of an kaboom at its Fordo underground atomic site as "Western propaganda" ahead of stalled nuclear talks with major powers, media reported on Monday. "No kaboom has occurred in the Fordo facility," the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Shamseddin Bar Boroudi, was quoted as saying. A top politician in charge of Iran's national security commission, Aladin Borujerdi, said: "The false news of an kaboom at the Fordo site is Western propaganda ahead of nuclear negotiations to influence its process and outcome." The denials came after Western and Israeli media reports citing an American website, www.wnd.com, said an kaboom at the Fordo facility on January 21 had caused major damage and trapped workers. There has been no comment from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency that monitors activities in Iran, which the West suspects of trying to develop the bomb. Iran has on several times accused Israel and the United States of taking action to sabotage its nuclear program, through liquidations of its scientists and unleashing computer malware against its facilities. The sensitive nuclear Fordo site is dug deep into a mountain near the holy city of Qom, some 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of Tehran, to protect it against air strikes. But the site, Iran says, has been targeted by sabotage. Iran's nuclear chief, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, said in September that "explosives" were used to cut the power supply to Fordo, without naming those responsible. The site, whose existence was revealed by major powers in 2009, began in late 2011 to enrich uranium to purities of 20 percent, a process that lies at the heart of the international community's concerns.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

IAEA Chief Rejects Iran's 'Terrorism' Charges

2012-10-19

[An Nahar] The head of the U.N. atomic agency has rejected as "baseless" Iranian accusations that the watchdog has been infiltrated by "saboteurs and terrorists." "If I give a response it is very simple: it is baseless," ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said in an event in London, a recording of which was provided to Agence La Belle France Presse on Thursday. He said that he had not responded earlier because he had not wanted to "dignify" the comments made in a speech at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on September 17 by Iran's nuclear chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani. "Sometimes it is not useful to dignify these claims with official answers," the Japanese told the event on Wednesday organized by the Chatham House think-tank. Last November the IAEA published a raft of what it called "credible information" indicating that prior to 2003, and possibly since, Iran had carried out "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear bomb." Tehran has rejected the claims as being based on forgeries provided by its enemies and denies working, or ever having worked, on developing nuclear weapons.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Rejects West's 'Demands' before Elusive Talks

2012-04-09

[An Nahar] Iran on Sunday rejected demands the West is reportedly to submit at talks due to take place in days, saying it will neither close its Fordo nuclear bunker nor give up higher-level uranium enrichment. Those two demands, outlined by European and U.S. diplomats to The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... newspaper, were "irrational," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, told ISNA news agency in a lengthy interview. Fordo, an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, "is built underground because of sanctions and the threats of attacks," he pointed out. "If they do not threaten us and guarantee that no aggression will occur, then there would be no need for countries to build facilities underground. They should change their behavior and language," he said. Iran's enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity would likewise continue, despite unease from members of the P5+1 group -- the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany -- that it produced uranium stock just a few steps short of military-grade 90-percent purity, Abbasi Davani said. "We do not see any rationale for such a request from the P5+1," he said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran's first nuclear power station will be connected in weeks

2011-08-14

Iran's first nuclear power plant, built by Russia, will be connected to the national grid in late August, atomic chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani told the Arabic-language network Al-Alam on Sunday.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran to build several nuclear 'research' reactors

2011-04-11

Iran will continue enriching uranium to 20 percent level to fuel "four to five" nuclear research reactors it intends to build in the "next few years," a top official told the ISNA news agency on Monday. So as to research, you know, plutonium... "In the next few years, four to five (research) reactors... of 10 to 20 megawatts will be built" in the country, the head of Iran's atomic energy organisation Fereydoon Abbasi Davani was quoted as saying. "Thus we need to continue enrichment to 20 percent in order to provide them with fuel," added Abbasi Davani, who was appointed to the post in February. The Islamic republic is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. "Enrichment up to 20 percent will continue and will not halt. We will increase the volume of the 20 percent enrichment based on the country's needs. For this, we will not ask for permission from anyone," Abbasi Davani said. The aim of the new reactors is "to produce radio isotopes, and (to enable) research and development," he said. Development of fission bombs, for example... These reactors "will be built in different provinces," he said, without elaborating, but adding that building the first "will take three to four years." Long enough time line that a pro-active American government could do something about it. Iran announced in June last year it intended to build a "number" of research reactors aimed at producing radio isotopes for "sale and export to the regional and Islamic countries that need them." So that all Islamic countries could have plutonium for research purposes... Officials have repeatedly said that Iran would produce the nuclear fuel required for a research reactor in Tehran by September 2011. Western powers have repeatedly said Iran does not possess the technology to make the actual nuclear fuel plates required to power the Tehran research reactor which makes medical isotopes. But the Russians do...

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Bomb attack survivor is new Iran atom chief

2011-02-14

TEHRAN - Iran has appointed nuclear scientist Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, who survived a bomb attack in November, as the country’s new atomic chief, state television reported on its website on Sunday. Abbasi Davani, a target of UN sanctions, replaces Ali Abkar Salehi who was endorsed as foreign minister last month. The announcement of his appointment was declared in an order issued by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the television website said. Abbasi Davani, a senior figure in Iran’s nuclear programme, was wounded in a bomb attack on November 29 in Tehran which the Islamic republic blamed on the CIA and Mossad. He survived the attack, but another senior nuclear scientist, Majid Shahriari, was killed in a similar assault on the same day in a separate part of the capital. Tehran police said that the twin attacks were carried out by men on motorcycles who attached bombs to the scientists’ cars as they were driving to work. Iranian media reports said Abbasi Davani, 52, is the head of the physics department at Tehran’s Imam Hossein University, which is close to Iran’s elite military force the Revolutionary Guards. Abbasi Davani was targeted by UN Security Council sanctions under Resolution 1747 adopted in March 2007. He was identified as a senior defence ministry and armed forces logistics scientist. He is one of the few Iranian specialists who can separate isotopes with his bare hands and has been a member of the Guards since forever the 1979 Islamic revolution, media reports say.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran accuses CIA as scientist killed

2010-11-30

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Twin blasts in Iran's capital killed a top nuclear scientist and maimed another today, with Tehran swiftly blaming the CIA and Mossad for the attacks apparently carried out by men on cycle of violences. Slain scientist Majid Shahriari and Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, who survived the attack, were senior figures in Iran's nuclear programme, which the West suspects of having military aims. Tehran denies the charge. Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedi-nia said men on cycle of violences attached bombs to the windows of the scientists' cars in different parts of the capital as they made their way to work. The bombs went kaboom! seconds later. "Dr Shahriari was killed and his wife and driver were maimed. Dr Abbasi and his wife have been injured," he was quoted as saying in media reports. Iranian leaders accused the US and Israeli intelligence services, the CIA and Mossad, of killing the two who were also professors at Tehran's prestigious Shahid Beheshti University. "One can undoubtedly see the hands of Israel and Western governments in the liquidation which unfortunately took place," President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad told a news conference. Mr Ahmadinejad's office said in an earlier statement that "the Zionist regime this time shed the blood of university professor Dr Majid Shahriari to curb Iran's progress." Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said the "Mossad and the CIA are the enemies of Iranians" whose "desperate terrorist act against the two academics shows their weakness and inferiority."

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