| An unnamed official from a country tracking Iran's nuclear program has provided the Associated Press with a computer generated image said to show an explosives containment chamber located inside Iran's Parchin military complex. According to experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, such a chamber is of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests. IISS Director for Disarmament Mark Fitzpatrick: "What one does inside such a chamber is conducts high explosives testing. You are going to make something go boom with maybe 70 kilograms of high explosives, you need to contain the explosion. And particularly if you are using uranium, which is reportedly the case, you want to contain all the uranium dust so there's not any tell-tale, observable signals of that experimentation." The official who provided the picture has said it is based on information from a person who had seen the chamber at the Parchin military site. The United Nation's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has long pressed Iran for access to the site, but so far, this has not been granted. The release of the image comes as IAEA officials prepare to meet their Iranian counterparts for talks in Vienna this week. The discussions will be closely watched by the six world powers -- the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- who will be holding their own negotiations with Iran in Baghdad on May 23rd. Iran has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the chamber depicted in the image, though ... |
