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What else is Iran hiding?
By Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht
Key bit:
[WashingtonPost] The unfinished North Korean-designed reactor that was destroyed by Israeli planes on Sept. 6, 2007, at Deir al-Zour in Syria was in all likelihood an Iranian project, perhaps one meant to serve as a backup site for Iran’s own nuclear plants. We draw this conclusion because of the timing and the close connection between the two regimes: Deir al-Zour was started around the time Iran’s nuclear facilities were disclosed by an Iranian opposition group in 2002, and the relationship between Shiite-ruled Syria and Shiite Iran has been exceptionally tight since Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000. We also know — because Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president and majordomo of the political clergy, proudly tells us in his multivolume autobiography — that sensitive Iranian-North Korean military cooperation began in 1989. Rafsanjani’s commentary leaves little doubt that the Iranian-North Korean nexus revolved around two items: ballistic missiles and nuclear-weapons technology.

In his memoirs, the bulk of which is composed of journal entries, Rafsanjani openly discusses Iran’s arms and missile procurement from North Korea. However, from 1989 forward, his entries on Pyongyang become more opaque — a change, we believe, indicating emerging nuclear cooperation. By 1991, Rafsanjani discusses “special and sensitive issues” related to North Korea in entries that are notably different from his candid commentary on tactical ballistic missiles. Rafsanjani mentions summoning Majid Abbaspour, who was the president’s technical adviser on “chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear industries,” into the discussions. Rafsanjani expresses his interest in importing a “special commodity” from the North Koreans in return for oil shipments to Pyongyang. He insists that Iran gain unspecified “technical know-how.”
Posted by: trailing wife 2015-03-31
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=414050