An Iranian opposition group released a report on Friday which says that the Islamic Republic is continuing to try and develop nuclear weapons while holding talks with Western powers.
The group is the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, an underground of some 10,000 insurgents that has worked against the Islamic regime in Tehran for many years.
According to a report in the German newspaper Die Welt, Iran is accelerating and expanding activities in the Parchin military site and pushing ahead to build a nuclear warhead. Mujahedeen Khalq is claiming that the Iranian regime has set up a comprehensive and sophisticated research structure, under utmost secrecy, in conjunction with a logistics network obtaining the necessary parts and equipment, in order to reach this objective.
Mujahedeen Khalq is the group that first blew the whistle on Iran’s secret nuclear programs in 2002, and it claims its newest report is based on sources within the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guards. The report exposes a list of nuclear scientists who are working on developing nuclear weapons, and even the phone numbers of some of them.
Earlier this week, new satellite photographs published by a Washington think tank suggested that Iran has been cleansing the Parchin military.
The Institute for Science and International Security said in an online posting that the imagery showed unidentified items lined up outside the chamber, possibly related to cleaning, and what appeared to be a stream of water from or near the chamber.
The satellite imagery was reportedly taken on April 9, after inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had made repeated requests for permission to visit the chamber at the site. Iranian officials have rejected the requests.
Iran is set to hold negotiations with the United States, France, Russia, China, Germany and Britain over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in Baghdad on May 23.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has expressed hope that the next round of talks with the six powers will mark “the beginning of the end of the nuclear issue.”
