In the beginning we were looking to have such a capability [to acquire nuclear bomb]

Khamenei and Rafsanjani personally wanted to meet Abdul Qadeer Khan

Quarter of a century later, Rafsanjani confirms Iranian Resistance’s disclosures of regime’s nuclear project

IAEA is unable to determine PMD without interviewing Rafsanjani and Khamenei

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian regime President and present head of regime’s State Exigency Council that has been regime’s No. 2 man from the outset made unprecedented concessions in an interview that the regime was looking to acquire nuclear bomb when it initiated its nuclear program and has never abandoned the idea.

According to this interview published by regime’s official news agency IRNA on 26 October 2015, Rafsanjani in the capacity of speaker of parliament or President and Khamenei as President or Supreme Leader of this regime have been personally following up the project to acquire the nuclear bomb. Moreover, Rafsanjani has acknowledged that from the onset there has been a comprehensive clandestine nuclear plan, including construction of secret sites, enrichment of uranium, manufacture of centrifuge parts, laser technology, and the heavy water reactor.

Rafsanjani also admitted that “80% to 90% of the Iranian people… concur with the [nuclear] accord and want to be done with it [nuclear project]”. Thus, he alludes to years of falsification in regime’s propaganda that the nuclear project is popular with the Iranian people.

After quarter of a century, he offered details that confirm the validity of disclosures by the resistance since 1991.

Many of Rafsanjani’s acknowledgements, including his own role in this anti-nationalistic project since the 1990s and during his Presidency, is referred to in the series of disclosures of the Iranian Resistance, as well as in resistance’s book entitled “Islamic Fundamentalism, The New Global Threat” (pp 133-139). Now we have the regime admitting what it has repeatedly denied on numerous occasions in the past.

1. In this interview Rafsanjani says: “At the time that we started, we were at war and we were looking to have this capability [the nuclear bomb] for the day that our enemy would want to resort to the nuclear bomb.” He audaciously continues, “Our basic doctrine was peaceful usage of the nuclear technology although we never abandoned the idea that if one day we are threatened and it is imperative, we would have the capability for going the other path [to nuclear weapon] as well”.

2. Rafsanjani acknowledges in this interview that both he and Khamenei wanted to meet Abdul Qadeer Khan. He noted: “There were some talks with the Pakistanis. There was a nuclear scientist called Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan… In a trip to Pakistan, I asked to see him. They did not show him to me… I had gone to Pakistan twice. In any case, I did not see him. Ayatollah Khamenei did not see him either. However, during the war, we were both pursuing to begin the work. It seemed that Mr. Abdul Qadeer Khan himself believed that the Islamic World should have the nuclear bomb. He believed in this and it was he who built Pakistan’s nuclear bomb although it took time to build the bomb. In any case, they agreed to help us a bit.”

The Iranian Resistance had previously announced that IRGC commanders had met Abdul Qadeer Khan at least twice. Moreover, according to Iranian Resistance disclosures, Abdul Qadeer Khan met with a delegation from regime’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEIO).

3. Rafsanjani dodged the question when asked: “Did anyone in the country suggested that you go towards the nuclear weapon? What was your response and what was the opinion of Khomeini and Khamenei?”

“We implemented part of our nuclear activity when we were still at war and Iraq was close to securing enrichment when Israel destroyed all of it. Of course, the first time it was on 20 September 1980 that our air force used four fighters to bomb the nuclear facility in Osirak that was almost completed and about to receive fuel … Those years, we were all thinking that we should arm ourselves with deterrent elements since the war was not about to end and in our defensive policies we had the word of Imam [Khomeini] in mind that the war may last 20 years,” Rafsanjani noted.

These statements by Rafsanjani unmistakably reveal regime’s intentions to acquire the nuclear weapon.

4. Khamenei’s direct involvement in the bomb-making project is while the religious fascism ruling Iran, for foreign consumption, claims that he has given a fatwa that the nuclear bomb is religiously forbidden. This fatwa has never been put in writing by the regime and it deceives no fool but those who are looking for a pretext to justify trade with this bloodthirsty tyranny. What kind of a fatwa is it that Rafsanjani does not know about and does not refer to, but regime’s foreign affairs people constantly point to it and the U.S. Secretary of State describes it as an “The fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent” and advocates of appeasement employ it to justify collaborations with this regime and making concessions to it.

5. Rafsanjani stipulates that “for the first enrichment they prepared a place in Amirabad from what they had acquired from Pakistan. They arranged them and we went for a visit. We prepared a workshop beside the hall to build the parts ourselves. We needed special parts, material and metals that we secured.”

In November 1991, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) revealed the secret communications between the regime and Pakistan on the nuclear projects and announced that the regime had allocated $5 billion for its cooperation in the nuclear realm with Pakistan (AFP – November 16, 1991).

6. Rafsanjani underscores that regime’s secret nuclear project to construct the heavy water reactor under the mountains began in the Alamooth of Qazvin. It was Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin who for the first time revealed in June 1991 that the regime had begun the plan entitled the “Great Plan” to acquire nuclear weapon in Alamooth of Qazvin. This plan was known as “Mo’alem Kelayeh” project inside regime’s circles (Washington Post – June 26, 1991).

7. Rafsanjani emphasizes: “North Korea was among countries that was somewhat ahead in this work [of building the nuclear bomb]. They made proposals to us… For Esfahan we signed an accord with the Chinese to build the UCF [Uranium Conversion Facility]. They gave us the complete design and they started the work. They made advances in engineering and arrived at some achievements. In my second trip to China, the Chinese President… signed an accord with me to build two nuclear reactors.”

Since 1991, the Iranian Resistance has numerously revealed regime’s relations with China in the nuclear domain (Washington Post – November 18, 1991). According to these revelations, on 10 September 1992, during Rafsanjani’s visit to China where he had taken along a number of nuclear experts, they signed a broad secret agreement for nuclear cooperation with the Chinese that only sections of which were made public. A section of the agreement that the resistance revealed at the time was the Esfahan project. Moreover, the Iranian Resistance has exposed details of Iranian regime’s nuclear cooperation with North Korea along the way, the last being in June 2015.

8. Rafsanjani stipulated: “We built a workshop on the road to Damavand [Tehran-Damavand road] and we reached the point to conduct the first test.”

In a press conference in Washington on 20 February 2003, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed this company that was called Kala-Electric and its workshop that operated under cover of a watch factory company. Despite the fact that the regime barred IAEA access to this site for many months, finally in environmental sampling of the area in IAEA inspections it was determined that centrifuges had been secretly assembled and tested there. Traces of highly enriched uranium used in construction of the nuclear bomb was discovered at the site.

The interviewer who is from Rafsanjani’s faction describes him as a “knowledgeable in nuclear science” and writes: “When he talks about laser and nuclear fusion and its difference with nuclear fission, his knowledge on the subject is bewildering although logically one should not be surprised since in the history of nuclear science and the formation of industry in Iran after the Islamic Revolution he surely plays the role of the principal supporter and its founder.”

10. Rafsanjani’s interview clearly indicates that from the onset the regime was after deceiving the International Atomic Energy Agency. “We had no problem with the IAEA in the nuclear activities because we were an IAEA member. They would come and sometimes point to some problems and Mr. Amrollahi and his friends would respond to them. During the early work, the agency never disturbed us although it didn’t help us either,” he says. “After my tenure as President, the West suddenly realized that we have made advances in different sections.”

11. Rafsanjani emphasizes that he has not refrained from anything to acquire the nuclear bomb. “I was so interested that at the end of my presidency, I wrote in my own handwriting and not even typed it to allocate $25 million for the heavy water [reactor] that was not in Arak at that time, but was expected to be in the Alamooth of Qazvin.”

12. Rafsanjani, who knows no limit in brazenness, adds: “I think that they made a commotion for nothing. The reason was that Monafeqin (derogatory term used by regime for PMOI) made a fabricated report of Natanz where we were still busy digging the site to build an underground and then the international commotion began. The West used it as a pretext to state that the site had not been declared to the IAEA and that we should have reported it. They raised a tumult. It was after that that they began stonewalling our move under the pretext of transparency.”

Rafsanjani’s remarks are despite the fact that regime’s President Rouhani, in his book entitled “National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy” writes that everything was proceeding well in Natanz and experts had made plans to get 54,000 centrifuges spinning by February 2003, but the press conference by the PMOI in summer 2002 raised a tumult.

The Iranian Resistance emphasizes that these statements by Rafsanjani is an unequivocal testimony to the fact that the Iranian regime, from the onset until present, and under direct supervision of Khamenei and Rafsanjani, has been in search of the nuclear weapon and has never abandoned it. The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN Security Council, the P5+1, and the IAEA to take immediate steps to have IAEA interview and interrogate Khamenei and Rafsanjani and other Iranian regime leaders. Absent these interviews, the IAEA investigations on the PMD would not be thorough.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran

October 27, 2015