The U.S. and other members of the U.N. Security Council have been involved in intense negotiations this winter and spring to hammer out an international agreement to insure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons. One of the biggest concerns is the control of nuclear related technology imports by Iran that might possibly be used in a nuclear weapons program. It has been reported that Iran has been attempting to evade international sanctions on its purchase of technology that might be used to create such weapons.
The Czech Republic recently blocked an attempt by Iran to purchase sanctioned equipment from a U.S. company with a branch in the Czech Republic. The incident was reported by the sanctions committee of the U.N. Security Council. Iran attempted to purchase a type of compressor that has both nuclear and non-nuclear applications from a U.S. company named Howden CKD Compressory. There is no evidence that Howden CKD Compressory knew that the order for the compressors violated the sanctions.
The sanctions committed said that a "false end user" had been provided with the compressor order. "The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions." The report did not provide any additional details and the Iran U.N. mission did not respond to a request for any information about the incident.
The Czech government reported that the business that placed the order for the compressors claimed that they were intended for a compressor station that could be used to transport natural gas. The Czechs did not provide any additional detail on exactly how they became aware of and stopped the transaction, the specifications for the particular compressors that were ordered or name the business that placed the fraudulent order. They did say that the value of the order was about sixty million U.S. dollars which would have been a huge order for Howden CKD Compressory which provides multi-stage centrifugal compressors for use in the oil and gas, petrochemical and other industries.
These type of compressor, in addition to the uses mentioned above, can also be utilized in centrifuge cascades that are used to purify uranium gas. Enriched uranium can be drawn directly from these compressors to be used as nuclear fuel or as material for the creation of nuclear weapons. Such compressors are especially useful when working with twenty percent enriched uranium. Most nuclear fuel for common nuclear power reactors is only enriched to about five percent so these compressors were probably intended for nuclear weapons production.
Iran had frozen twenty percent enrichment as part of the international negotiations in 2013. The attempted purchase of these compressors under false documentation in 2014 is certainly suspicious. Such behavior on the part of the Iranians supports claims by critics of the international nuclear program negotiations that Iran cannot be trusted to honor the terms of any deal aimed at curbing Iranian nuclear ambitions.
