Nuclear Program Begins Iran begins a civilian nuclear program in the 1950s, led by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who reaches a deal through the Eisenhower administration's Atoms for Peace program. Under the agreement, the United States agrees to provide a nuclear research reactor in Tehran and power plants. Iran Signs Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty With the American-provided research reactor running, starting in 1967, Iran becomes one of 51 nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreeing to never become a nuclear-weapon state. Creation of Atomic Energy BodyThe shah creates the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which conducts training for its personnel and nuclear deals with countries including the United States, France, West Germany, Namibia and South Africa. By training engineers in Iran and abroad, the country gains a solid understanding of nuclear technologies and capabilities.A year later, Kraftwerk Union, a West German company, agrees to construct two light water reactors to produce nuclear energy at the Bushehr complex, 470 miles south of Tehran. But the contract is not signed until 1976.By the late 1970s, the United States becomes worried that Iran may harbor nuclear weapon ambitions. Shah FleesThe shah is overthrown and flees the country, in what becomes known as the Islamic Revolution of 1979.Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar takes over and cancels the $6.2 billion contract for the construction of two nuclear power plants at the Bushehr complex.The United States retracts a deal it had made with Iran a year earlier and stops supplying enriched uranium for the Tehran research reactor.
Khomeini Comes to Power Prime Minister Bakhtiar is overthrown by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled cleric, after bloody clashes in Tehran.The new leader is uninterested in the nuclear program and ends the shah's effort. Many nuclear experts flee the country.Any nuclear cooperation between Iran and the United States breaks down completely with the American Embassy hostage crisis from Nuclear Program RestartsThe Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988, changes Iran's thinking about the nuclear program. With Saddam Hussein pursuing a nuclear program in Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini secretly decides to restart Iran's program and seeks the assistance of German partners to complete the construction at Bushehr, which was damaged by bombs during the war.Help From Pakistani ScientistIn the late 1980s, a Pakistani metallurgist and the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, and in Libya's case, a bomb design. The transactions do not become public until years later.In 2005, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency is on the verge of reviewing Tehran's nuclear program when Iranian officials admit to a with Dr.
Khan's representatives. But Tehran tells the agency that it turned down the chance to buy the equipment required to build the core of a bomb. New Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's nominal president for eight years, becomes supreme leader after Ayatollah Khomeini dies. Iran and Russia Sign Nuclear ContractIran announces that it will sign an $800 million contract with Russia to complete construction on one of two light water reactors at the Bushehr nuclear plant within four years.
Iran Nuclear Weapons 2019
After many delays, the project was completed in 2010.The United States has been persuading countries like Argentina, India, Spain, Germany and France to prohibit the sale of nuclear technology to Iran's civilian program.Sanctions Against Iran and Libya With growing intelligence estimates that Iran may secretly be trying to build a nuclear weapon, President Bill Clinton signs a bill imposing sanctions on foreign companies with investments in Iran and Libya. Such rules are already in place for American companies.Proposal for Nuclear-Free MideastPresident Mohammad Khatami of Iran goes to Saudi Arabia, becoming the first Iranian leader since 1979 to visit the Arab world.He issues a joint statement with King Fahd expressing concerns about Israel's nuclear weapons program and support for ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons. In 2003, Iran supports such a proposal initiated by Syria.
Discovery of Secret PlantsMujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian dissident group also known as the M.E.K., obtains and shares documents revealing a clandestine nuclear program previously unknown to the United Nations.The program includes a vast uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak. In December, satellite photographs of Natanz and Arak appear widely in the news media. The United States accuses Tehran of an but takes relatively little action because it is focused on the approaching invasion of Iraq the next year.Iran agrees to inspections by the I.A.E.A.
It also to speed up completion of the nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Nuclear Program Is SuspendedPossibly in response to the American invasion of Iraq, which was originally justified by the Bush administration on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Ayatollah Khamenei orders a suspension of work on what appear to be weapons-related technologies, although he allowsInspectors with the United Nations atomic agency find traces of highly enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, and Iran after talks with Britain, France and Germany, to accept stricter international inspections of its nuclear sites and to suspend production of enriched uranium.
Violation and New AgreementIran violates the agreement, charging that the Europeans reneged on their promises of economic and political incentives. After 22 hours of negotiations, an Iranian delegation and senior officials from France, Germany, Britain and the European Union come to a preliminary agreement to immediately suspend Iran's production of enriched uranium. The Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, praises the so-called Paris Agreement but emphasizes that any suspension will be temporary.In a few weeks, the I.A.E.A verifies Iran's suspension of its enrichment activities, with one exception: its request to use up to 20 sets of centrifuge components for research and development. With Laptop Files, U.S.
From Enver Masud (disclaimer: I do not subscribe to his 9/11 conspiracy theories), without fact-checking:. Iran probably stopped pursuing a nuclear bomb in 2003, according to the most recently published U.S.
National Intelligence Estimate, the consensus of 16 intelligence agencies including the CIA. Binyamin Netanyahu's dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document. Unlike Israel, Iran is signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has not launched an aggressive war since 1775. The Pentagon has admitted that Israel's nuclear research labs 'are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.' Read by this author.