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Witness History

The Search for Iran's Nuclear Programme

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2018

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2003 Iran agreed to let officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency into the country to look at its nuclear facilities. Olli Heinonen was one of the inspectors tasked with trying to establish whether or not Iran was trying to develop nuclear weapons. He's been speaking to Tim Mansel about what they found.

Photo:The Iranian nuclear power plant of Natanz, south of Tehran.(Credit:Henghameh Fahimi/AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less searching

0:25.7

and a lot more watching. Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:29.2

You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Tim Mansell.

0:36.1

Today we're going back to 2002 when Iran was coming under increasing international pressure for its nuclear activities.

0:46.5

Good day ladies and gentlemen.

0:48.8

It's the 14th of August, 2002 in a conference room at a hotel in Washington DC.

0:55.2

Ali Reza Jafarsade is addressing a group of journalists.

1:00.6

He represents the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an exile Iranian dissident group.

1:07.0

Today I'm going to reveal to you two top secret sites of the Iranian regime that they had succeeded to keep it secret until today.

1:16.0

One of these sites was at a place called Natantz just off a major highway some 300 kilometers south of Tehran.

1:24.3

We know that that facility is going to be used for nuclear fuel production.

1:30.6

Nuclear fuel can be used for civilian purposes made of what's known as low enriched uranium.

1:37.0

Weapons-grade nuclear fuel is much more highly enriched.

1:42.0

Mr. Jafarsade said that Natans, together with the other secret site,

1:46.3

a heavy water production plant, represented clear evidence that Iran had embarked on what he called this horrifying weapons of

1:56.7

mass destruction program. If this were true it would put Iran in breach of its

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