Former Iranian President: Pakistani Bomb Dealer Helped Launch Tehran’s Nuclear Program

In an interview with the Iranian newspaper Etemad, former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani admitted that Tehran sought and received assistance in starting its illicit nuclear enrichment program from the notorious Pakistani nuclear bomb dealer A. Q. Khan, according to a translation published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Tuesday.

We had talks with the Pakistanis, a scientist called Mr. Abd al-Qadir Khan [A.Q. Khan].”

“During my visits to Pakistan, I wanted to meet him, but they did not introduce him to me. Ayatollah Khamenei, too, did not meet him. But during the [Iran-Iraq] war, we both tried to restart the program. It seems Mr. Abd al-Qadir Khan himself was of the belief that the world of Islam should have a nuclear bomb. This was his conviction, and it was he who built the Pakistani nuclear bomb. However, it took a long time to build the bomb.”

“At any rate, it was agreed that they should help us a bit – for example, by delivering second-hand first-generation centrifuges, along with some designs – so that we could built it ourselves. Gradually, we started the work and continued Bushehr, meaning we did work which was possible. Because of the power plant, we would be doing work on the power plant. Elsewhere, we were producing the components for enrichment.” …

For the first part of the enrichment work, a place was established in Amir Abad. What we had received from Pakistan were installed next to each other. We inspected it. We also established a workshop next to it in order to build the components ourselves. We acquired the necessary parts, materials and special metals and a two-front work began.”

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