Britain's Sceret Nuclear Talks With Iran

Secret Talks With Iran On Nuclear Reactors

By Ben Fenton
Published: December 28 2007 02:00
Last updated: December 28 2007 02:00
Courtesy Of The: Financial Times

Britain entered into secret negotiations in 1977 to build 20 nuclear reactors for the Shah of Iran, a programme that would have dwarfed similar projects offered at the time by France and Germany.

In negotiations with the head of the Iranian atomic energy programme, senior UK civil servants predicted that by the end of the 20th century Iran would have obtained the technology - from Britain itself - to build nuclear weapons.

But the imperative to keep Britain's own nuclear energy industry alive by signing the enormous deal trumped such considerations, according to the archives.

In a note to No 10 Downing Street in February that year, a senior official in the ministry of Tony Benn, energy secretary, wrote:

"Eventually, but in my view not for another 10 years at least, [Akbar] E'temad [president of the atomic energy organisation of Iran] will ask for reprocessing and enrichment technology.

"Given the state of Iranian industry we ought to be able to put him off until near the end of the century."

In another note to James Callaghan, prime minister, Mr Benn said Iran would invest millions of pounds in pressurised water reactor technology in return for Britain's agreement to supply the 20 PWR plants.

Mr Benn conceded that his most senior atomic energy adviser had "found himself drawn into a proposal that would involve a close nuclear partnership between Britain and Iran under which we would take a leading role in developing their massive nuclear power programme with some cross investment of Iranian funds here.

"There is a risk that we might be drawn inexorably into the supply of sensitive technology at a later stage - say in 10 years' time."

The file contains a bitter letter of complaint to Callaghan from Arnold, later Lord, Weinstock, chairman of GEC, saying that he had only heard about the scheme in May and "astounded" at the secrecy and the delay in pressing ahead with the project.

In fact, by this time the cabinet had already decided to slow down progress because in April 1977 the new American president, Jimmy Carter, had begun a nuclear non-proliferation initiative.

But the file shows that UK officials were still hopeful of beating off competition from France and Germany, which had offered to build one or two relatively small reactors for the Shah.

The delay meant that by January 1979, when the Shah fled and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power, there were no British reactors in Iran and the German and French plants were only partially built.

Today, Iran does not yet have a functioning nuclear power plant.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007