Iran accused of bio-weapons program
By David Briscoe Associated Press
Tuesday, January 26
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iran's opposition in exile accused President Mohammad
Khatami on Tuesday of accelerating development of a secret biological weapons
program despite his country's ratification of the biological weapons treaty.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, the Mujahedeen, described
four government centers it said are involved in biological weapons development
and six biological research centers. It said Russian, Ukrainian and other
former Soviet scientists have been working at some of the facilities.
The Mujahedeen declined to identify any of its sources in Iran, except
to say that the group has contacts at all levels of Iranian society, and
offered no documents that would prove that such a program exists.
The Khatami government denies that it has any biological, chemical
or nuclear weapons programs. Efforts to obtain comment on the Mujahedeen
claims from Iranian offices in Washington and New York were not immediately
successful.
Iran has signed both international chemical and biological weapons
treaties aimed at ridding the world of such weaponry.
U.S. officials have long believed that Iran has an offensive biological
program. The State Department says the program has been pursued at least
since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s. ``And the pace of Iran's biological
weapons program probably has increased in recent years, since the 1995
revelation about the extent of Iraq's biological weapons system,'' an official
said Tuesday.
Private arms control analysts also have raised concerns about Iran's
potential for developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But
Howard Diamond, senior analyst with the Arms Control Association, said
Tuesday it is difficult to tell the difference between nonweapons biological
research and production and weapons programs.
``Khatami's moderation is a myth,'' said Soona Samsami, U.S. Mujahedeen
representative, at a news conference. ``Clearly, as far as weapons of mass
destruction are concerned, Khatami is following in the footsteps of his
predecessors and has launched an all-out effort to expand the program.''
Samsami offered scattered details of a program that she said includes
advanced fermenter systems that have produced at least three biological
weapons: VX, aflatoxin and an agent that contaminates soil. She gave names
of some officials the Mujahedeen believes are involved in the program but
offered no specifics on weapons produced.
Samsami said the Defense Ministry Special Industries oversees biological
and germ warfare under the office of the president and has 4,000 employees.
But she said no information was available on the total number of Iranians
involved in biological weapons research and production.
Among facilities she named were Tehran's Pasteur Institute and the
Razi Serum Institute in Hessarak, both set up to develop veterinary vaccines.
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