‘Nuclear assassinations disgrace IAEA’

Press TV – January 12, 2012

The assassination of Iranian scientists has disgraced the UN nuclear agency as the body has provided Western intelligence agencies with confidential information on Iran’s nuclear experts, a political analyst tells Press TV.

On Wednesday morning, an unknown motorcyclist attached a sticky bomb to Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan’s car near Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran.

Ahmadi Roshan, a Sharif University of Technology chemical engineering graduate and the deputy director of marketing at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, was killed immediately and his driver, who had sustained injures, passed away a few hours later in hospital.

In an interview with Press TV on Wednesday, Professor Seyyed Mohamed Marandi said, “IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] officials had met him [Ahmadi Roshan] earlier.”

Marandi added that “a lot of Iranian intelligence and information have been given to intelligence sources as well as terrorist organizations” by the IAEA in the past.

The prominent political analyst said it is difficult for Iran to continue cooperation with the IAEA as the agency is “dominated by the Western countries” and puts “[Iranian] people at risk.”

Marandi said all of Iranian scientists who had been targeted by terrorist attacks “have had their names given by the IAEA to third parties.”

“It is obvious that Western intelligence agencies are carrying out these attacks, or if the Israelis are carrying them out, it is with the knowledge of the Europeans and Americans. Because these agencies are very closely aligned to one another, they cooperate extensively, they exchange information,” he added.

The latest terrorist attack comes as Iran has reached an agreement with the P5+1 — Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany – to hold negotiations in Turkey.

The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to sway the UNSC to impose four rounds of sanctions on Iran.

Based on these accusations, they have also repeatedly threatened Tehran with the “option” of a military strike.

This is while in November 2011, some of the US presidential hopefuls called for conducting covert operations ranging from assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists to launching a military strike on Iran as well as sabotaging Tehran’s nuclear program.

The calls for assassinations are not idle threats as a number of Iranian scientists have been assassinated over the past few years. Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi are among the victims of these acts of terror.

On November 29, 2010, Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi were targeted by terrorist attacks; Shahriari was killed immediately and Dr. Abbasi, the current director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, only sustained injuries.

Iran says as the UN Resolution 1747, adopted against Tehran in March 2007, cited Abbasi’s name as a “nuclear scientist,” the perpetrators were in a position to trace their victim.

According to reports, Ahmadi Roshan had recently met IAEA inspectors, a fact which indicates that the UN nuclear agency has leaked information about Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists.