BERLIN - Customs officials arrested German businessmen in a German airport recently on their way to deliver Basketball Shoes unlawful nuclear technology for the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
However, RYdiger Hagen, a spokesman for the German customs control agency's criminal division, told The Jerusalem Post there was "no ongoing investigation that can be attributed to" Bushehr, the city on the southwestern coast of Iran where a nuclear power plant is being built in cooperation with Russia.
Reuters cited unnamed Western diplomats on Thursday as saying, "The arrests had infuriated Russia, which complained to members of the UN Security Council's Iran sanctions committee."
Ruslan Bakhtin, a spokesman for the Russian mission to the United Nations in New York, told the Post he had "no comment" on the media reports.
A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry also declined to comment on the alleged diplomatic row with Russia. She wrote in an e-mail to the Post that "on the issue of the supposed arrests, I refer you to the justice authorities of Hesse, where you may also ask the appropriate prosecutor."
Dagmar Dsring, a spokeswoman for the Hesse state Judicial Ministry, told the Post that "there is no process involving arrests."
According to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday, a German firm sought "more than a month ago" to deliver dual-use parts, which can be used for both military and civilian purposes, for the Russian-built plant Bushehr.
Export of the sophisticated equipment constitutes a violation of European Union restrictions on the transfer of dual-use technology to Iran.
The German engineering giant Siemens AG designed the Bushehr power plant in the 1970s but walked away from its contract with Teheran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Nuclear experts argue that helps to explain the Iranian procurement effort in Germany, because Bushehr requires German-based technology to operate.
The state-controlled Iranian Press TV reported on Thursday that Bushehr is slated to be up and running in August. According to Press TV, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, the director of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear energy corporation, told Russian news organizations, "We are counting on the nuclear power station launching in August, if everything goes as planned."
Critics have long said that German and Iranian businessman have managed to deliver nuclear technology to Iran over the years because of Germany's lax export controls.
"Various scandals regarding illegal Iran trade during the last years show that Germany needs to implement a much stricter export control system, and it should throw out Iranian Replica Concord Watches Asia state companies like the Ascotec GmbH in DYsseldorf and the front companies of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines in Hamburg," Jonathan Weckerle, a spokesman for the German chapter of the Stop the Bomb organization, told the Post.
abercrombie clothingStop the Bomb seeks to dramatically curtail Germany's flourishing trade relationship with Teheran and to promote Iran's growing democracy movement.
"German exports to Iran increased by 3 percent in February 2010 when compared to February 2009. Imports even increased 159%, according to the
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