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BELGIAN COMPANIES ACCUSED OF EXPORTING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO IRAN

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.159706364&par=0

Brussels, 29 April (AKI) - Belgian companies have carried out the illegal export of high precision "dual-use" nuclear-related material to Iran, according toa report Friday in the Belgian daily, Le Soir, which cites an internal document from the Belgian ministry of finance. The front page story in the daily refers to a confidential fax that was sent from the finance ministry to all the customs offices in the country.
"An investigation has revealed that some Belgian companies have attempted to export "dual-use" material, without the license of exportation required by the European community," said the document, cited in Le Soir. The document also mentions in particular the "presses or parts of presses of isostatic nuclear material" that could "be exported to Iran." These presses serve to regulate the pressure in a closed cavity with different mediums (gas, liquid, solid particles) and would have already been used in the past in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, "to compact" or contain nuclear fuel.


According to research in the Le Soir daily, there is only one company in Belgium that produces the same presses. The Engineered Pressure Systems International (EPSI) is the company and it is situated in the town of Tamise in Flanders, the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium.

When contacted by Le Soir, EPSI admitted that it used a truck to export isostatic presses to Tehran last January. Nevertheless, the company's administrator Pierre Colmann defended the actions saying that that shipment was about presses from the laboratory that was destined for the aeronautic industry. According to Colmann, the dimension of the presses were below 152 millimetres, and therefore were on the threshold of the size for which the EU requires a license.

According to the newspaper, citing unidentified sources, in 2004, before the exportation of the isostatic presses, the CIA had already put on guard the Belgian authorities of the possible nuclear use of this type of instrument. The customs authorities should have therefore intercepted the material in question even if legally it did not require a license.

On top of this, the Le Soir also added that the confidential fax was sent by the Ministry to the customs authorities on 22 December, even before the presses had left EPSI for Iran.

"Given what has happened before, - said the finance ministry fax cited in Le Soir - we ask that the customs services bring particular attention to this and carry out enforced surveillance on the exportation and the transit of similar merchandise."

If these facts and actions are officially confirmed, it could seriously embarrass the government of Belgium.