Evidence of Nuclear Ties Between Iran and India

While the US is putting more pressure on India to abandon its plans with Iran. The Wall Street Journal charges that India has also been aiding Iran's nuclear program.

An official working on nonproliferation issues in the Bush administration says there is strong evidence that Dr. Prasad [retired Indian nuclear scientist] -- and to a lesser extend Dr. Surendar -- passed to Iran the technology needed to extract tritium from heavy-water reactors. Such reactors are used in India and in Canada, where Dr. Prasad studied heavy-water nuclear technology on a three-year scholarship in the 1960s. READ MORE

Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, generates its own luminosity and is used commercially as a light source in flares and watch dials. It can also enhance the explosive power of nuclear weapons when heated and compressed by the detonation of a nuclear device fueled by plutonium or uranium.

Drs. Prasad and Surendar deny they had any role in passing on tritium technology. Dr. Prasad asserts that the U.S. targeted him as a warning to New Delhi to back away from its embrace of Tehran. "It's purely energy politics," he says. The U.S. is seeking to "control the relationship between Iran and India."