Agence France-Presse,
London: Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran obtain the technology needed to make missiles capable of hitting European capitals, a British newspaper claimed on Sunday.
Citing anonymous “Western intelligence officials”, The Sunday Telegraph said the Russians were go-betweens as part of a multi-million-pound (dollar, euro) deal they negotiated between Iran and North Korea in 2003.
“It has enabled Teheran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top secret missile technology, believed to be channelled through Russia,” the newspaper reported in a front-page article.
The allegations came after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice feuded openly with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov over Iran's nuclear programme while on a brief trip to Moscow on Saturday.
The article also emerged as Rice prepared to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London later Sunday.
According to the Telegraph, Iran would be able to use its new technology to build a missile with a range of 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles).
“It is designed to carry a 1.2-ton payload, sufficient for a basic nuclear device,” the newspaper said.
It quoted a senior US official as saying Iran's programme was “sophisticated and getting larger and more accurate. They have had very much in mind the payload needed to carry a nuclear weapon.
“I think (Russian President Vladimir) Putin knows what the Iranians are doing.”
Washington has long suspected that Iran is using its nuclear power programme as cover to develop the capability to build nuclear weapons, a suspicion Tehran says is unfounded. It insists that its nuclear activities are designed to generate energy purely for civil purposes.
