An anticipated report by the International Atomic Energy Agency contains allegations that the nuclear program in Iran was developed with assistance from Soviet nuclear physicists.

      The Guardian announced the preliminary findings of the IAEA inspection. According to these, not only does Iran certainly possesses the facilitied to produce nuclear weapons, some of them could not be developed without help. The help, The Washington Post stated earlier, was likely to have been provided by the Soviet physicist Vyacheslav Danilenko. Dr Danilenko used to work in Iran, at the Centre for Studies in Physics. There he and his colleagues reportedly exchanged with Iranians their ideas and experience in how to build "high precision detonators" that can be used to provoke the mechanisms of "chain nuclear reaction". Recently Dr. Danilenko has been working for a Czech company "Nanotech".

      Iran has resolutely refused to provide access to the IAEA inspectors, to survey the country's territory. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran stated that the pressure is purely political, whereas Iran would publicly announce the nuclear weapons program, had it had one. The pressure currently comes from Israel: the country leaders claim that Iran is ready to attack Israel, and therefore the international community must act to prevent this, "whether this means serious sanctions or a military operation".

      Source: Interfax. Image courtesy: CountryI.

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