Fallahian: We Should Have Hidden Nuclear Program

Koroush Salimi, Rooz Online:

Commenting on Iran's nuclear file, Ali Fallahian and Ali Younesi, former intelligence ministers have revealed the intelligence policies of the previous administrations. Blaming former president Mohammad Khatami, Fallahian blamed him for not allowing Iran to hide its nuclear activities. His successor in Khatami's reform government says the US is spreading false and misleading information on Iran's nuclear activities. He complained and claimed that the US had dispatched agents to disrupt Iran’s nuclear activities. READ MORE

In an international conference on Iran's nuclear activities held in Tehran, Younesi revealed for the first time aspects of US secret activities in Iran to push the country’s nuclear file to a crises. Although sporadic news and often contradictory information on the arrest of American agents or US infiltration in the country’s nuclear organizations had been published, this is the first time more details seem to be expressed. Even in the case when a manager at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization was accused of espionage, the outcome of the case was never publicly announced.

Younesi claimed that in the past, US intelligence services had dispatched their agents to sell enriched uranium to Iran in order to launch a propaganda campaign against the Islamic regime, but Iranian counter-intelligence agents had successfully neutralized this.

Iran's former Intelligence Minister said Iran's transparent and constructive cooperation with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) blocked US efforts to impose its agenda. Younesi, who is currently an advisor to the judiciary, asserted that nobody any longer believed US claims against Iran, US officials themselves had changed their messages and now acknowledge that Iran will one day have nuclear weapons.

A week earlier, Hamshahri monthly publication published an interview with Ali Fallahian, Younesi's predecessor, in which he contradicted the former minister and said that Khatami had erred in disclosing the country’s nuclear activities.

Fallahian who is held accountable domestically and internationally for planning and guiding the secret execution of dozens of Iranian dissidents told Hamshahri: “Europeans are worse than Americans. They are cunning and very much against us. I always disagreed in having closer ties with them. Their promises were lies. They insult us when they say they pursue the policy of providing carrots and using the stick. Europeans should not be using such language with us. We should not allow them to do so. Unfortunately there were those who said we should calm down. It would be good if we conceded and it would produce results. But it did not.”

In another part of his interview with Hamshahri, ultra-hardline Fallahian said that the ministry of foreign affairs handled the official and formal diplomacy of Iran, while the intelligence ministry all over the world pursued the hidden diplomacy of a country. “While sometimes official diplomacy makes headway, in strategic issues, it was secret diplomacy that was effective,” he said.

When asked about the current nuclear policy, Fallahian said, “The government is on the right track, although it should not have announced its nuclear breakthrough until it had fully acquired the nuclear cycle.”

When asked about the fact that the West knew about the nuclear activities prior to the espionage claims, he said, “Espionage had limitations as it did not change things because it never brought in 100 percent certainty. People say and do things for money or make honest mistakes. When we come out and say something, the issue becomes official and can be pursuit in a court of law, while what services “learn” through espionage is never certain.”

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