Iran Focus
London, 8 Jul – According to a recent report from a German intelligence agency, in a possible violation of a UN agreement, Iran is seeking assistance from German companies to advance its missile program.
Officials from Germany’s third largest state, Baden-Württemberg, published a 181 page report last month, and released it on Tuesday, July 4th.
This report warned that Iran is actively seeking “products and scientific know-how for the field of developing weapons of mass destruction as well missile technology.”
Baden-Württemberg is located in the southwest with borderson France and Switzerland, and is among the most prosperous[ and wealthiest regions in Europe. It is heavily industrialized, the home of a number of well-known enterprises such as Daimler AG, Porsche, Robert Bosch GmbH (automobile industry), Carl Zeiss AG (optics), and SAP SE (largest software enterprise in Europe) and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen (precision mechanical engineering). The Islamic Republic is targeting German companies through various fronts.
Iran allegedly worked through a Chinese front company in one case, to seek “complex metal-producing machines” from a German engineering firm. The sale was blocked by German intelligence officials when they were told by the engineering firm that the merchandise was slated to be unlawfully routed to Iran.
“This case shows that so-called indirect deliveries across third countries is still Iran’s procurement strategy,” wrote the intelligence officials.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) released another report this week that found that the deal brokered by the Obama administration, in an attempt to limit Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, resulted in little or no decrease in the Islamic Republic’s efforts to gain technology for missiles capable of carrying warheads. However, the JCPOA agreement was only aimed at restricting nuclear technology, not missile technology.
“The amount of evidence found for attempts to acquire proliferation-sensitive material for missile technology/the missile program, which is not covered by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, remained about the same,” the report said.
The U.S. and other world powers, including France, China, Russia and the United Kingdom, reached an agreement with Iran in July 2015. The nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was meant to restrict Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The U.S. and Iran have made claims and counter-claims as to whether Iran’s ballistic missile tests violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which was put in place days after the Iran nuclear deal was signed and calls on the Islamic Republic not to conduct such tests.
