Mugabe signs secret deal to sell uranium to Tehran Posted by ffzenewsroom BY Jerome Starkey, Jan Raath in Harare, Michael Evans and Hugh Tomlinson: Zimbabwe’s Government has signed an agreement with Iran to sell raw materials for a nuclear weapon in direct breach of international sanctions, a senior government official has told The Times . The move by Harare and Tehran is expected to provoke international outrage because of the attempt to circumvent punitive Western sanctions imposed on the two regimes. Gift Chimanikire, the Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister, said that a memorandum of understanding had been signed to export uranium to Tehran, despite warnings from Washington of serious “ramifications” if such a deal went ahead. The minister said that Zimbabwe had struck the deal last year because sanctions imposed by the West — which banned international trade with its state-owned mining companies — had forced the cash-strapped regime to look elsewhere. “Mining is Zimbabwe’s ticket,” he said. Both countries are subject to international sanctions: Iran because of its nuclear ambitions; Zimbabwe because of human rights abuses by the ruling Zanu (PF) party. British security officials said they were aware that the Iranians were in discussions with the Zimbabwean Government over buying uranium deposits. Secret negotiations between Iran and President Mugabe had been taking place for more than two years. Mr Chimanikire, an opposition politician who served in the outgoing coalition Government under President Mugabe, said that a Chinese company was surveying yellow-cake deposits in the remote northeast of the country, and that the Government had been looking for buyers. Iran needs uranium for its nuclear aspirations. Tehran maintains that its programme is for domestic energy needs, but it is widely feared to be enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb. The minerals in Kanyemba, close to the borders with Zambia and Mozambique, were discovered by a German company almost 30 years ago and deemed commercially unviable. “I have seen [a memorandum of understanding] to export uranium to the Iranians,” Mr Chimanikire said. He cited similar deals in the country’s diamond fields, which he said had been made without his knowledge. Only a handful of people at the top of Zimbabwe’s Government knew about the uranium deal, he added. Analysts said that the deal suggested that Harare was simply keeping its options open. It could be a long time before the uranium reserves, estimated at up to 45,000 tonnes, were ready for export. A geologist familiar with the deposit said that it was mixed with other minerals and groundwater, making extraction extremely costly. Nonetheless, the deal risks thwarting any hopes of a rapprochement with the West, as President Mugabe begins a seventh term in office amid allegations of large-scale vote- rigging. China is also hungry for uranium. Both countries are said to have offered fuel, finance and construction projects in exchange for mining licences. Leaked intelligence documents suggest that Iran tried but failed to buy 1,350 tonnes of purified uranium from Kazakhstan in 2009. Niger, the world’s fourth-largest uranium producer, is under close scrutiny since erroneous claims in 2003 that it was selling to the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. French special forces now guard the country’s largest mine. Mr Mugabe, 89, prompted speculation of a deal in 2010 when he welcomed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then Iran’s President, to Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe described Tehran’s quest for nuclear power as a “just cause”. In 2011, the US State Department warned of “ramifications for countries that decline to observe their international obligations” after Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister, visited Tehran and spoke out against the sanctions. Also in 2011, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said that Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s Foreign Minister, had met mining officials in Zimbabwe “to resume negotiations for the benefit of Iran’s uranium procurement plan”. Mr Chimanikire’s claim is the first time that a serving government official has disclosed the existence of a formal agreement between the two countries. He said that the memorandum of understanding was based on mining legislation passed by Zimbabwe’s parliament in 2012. A senior official in the ministry of mines said that he was unaware of the deal. Mr Chimanikire, who kept his seat in parliament, is expected to step down as deputy mining minister when Mr Mugabe forms a new Government next week. He said that Zimbabwe’s mining sector was operating at less than a third of capacity and that it needed at least $6 billion (£3.9billion) to fulfil its potential. He said that the Government was so short of money that it had used cash from diamond sales to pay civil servants. The Treasury receives little tax from the diamonds — mined by a Chinese consortium in association with Zimbabwe’s generals — because they are undervalued at Harare airport. “What goes on there is as good as in the dead of night,” Mr Chimanikire said. A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “Any reports of uranium being supplied to Iran are concerning.”
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 09:13:47 +0000
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