Iran ‘seeking technology to build weapons of mass destruction in Europe’

Iran is seeking technology in Europe that it needs to develop weapons of mass destruction, Dutch intelligence says.

A report by the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands said Iran’s efforts came to light as the result of an investigation last year.

The findings follow a German intelligence agency report last month that said Tehran was turning to Europe in its quest for weapons of mass destruction.

Sweden also accused Iran of carrying out industrial espionage aimed at products that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Iran denies seeking weapons of mass destruction and is involved in talks in Vienna aimed at restoring the nuclear limits it agreed to in 2015.

But the Dutch report casts new doubt on Iran’s denials, naming it as one of the countries it is monitoring for trying to obtain weapons technology.

“Countries such as Syria, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea tried, including in the past year, tried to acquire such goods and technology in Europe and the Netherlands,” the report said.

“The unit carried out intensive investigations in 2020 into several networks that played a role in this.

“These networks are very active, and use all kinds of middlemen and transporters in European countries.”

In the past year, Dutch intelligence efforts succeeded in “frustrating and stopping numerous acquisition attempts,” the report said.

The 24-page document accuses Tehran of monitoring its expatriate population in the Netherlands and of gathering intelligence on regime critics.

In addition, Iran was named on a list of countries that carried out cyber attacks in the Netherlands.

Last month, German officials named Iran as one of several countries trying to develop weapons of mass destruction.

They said the Iranian intelligence services remained active in Europe even after they were implicated in a failed 2018 bomb plot in Paris.

In Sweden, an annual security report published in March accused Iran of industrial espionage.

The intelligence findings come against the backdrop of the ongoing talks between Iran and world powers in Vienna that seek to return Tehran and the US to a 2015 agreement that lifts sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear activity.