At Baltic State Tech, Iranian students may no longer study missiles

MOSCOW -- In an effort to avoid U.S. sanctions, Russia has banned Iranian students from attending courses on missile development and nuclear weapons technology.

Russian officials said the Education Ministry has banned Iranians from studying missile and nuclear weapons technology at Baltic State Technology University. They said the decision was issued after U.S. protests that the university was teaching scores of Iranians technology meant to develop missiles and nuclear weapons.

Deputy Education Minister Alexander Kondakov said his ministry investigated the U.S. accusation and barred 17 Iranian students enrolled to begin studies in September. "Considering the importance of the nonproliferation of missile technologies, we suggested that the university stop training Iranian specialists in that field," Kondakov said.

So far, the U.S. State Department has blacklisted 13 Russian research centers and companies suspected of helping Iran with nuclear or missile research.

Earlier, the rector of Baltic State Technology University, Yuriy Savalyev was suspended after he was suspected allowing Iranian students to attend courses that concern missile technology. Savalyev's suspension was said to have been ordered by Russian Education Minister Vladimir Filippov after the U.S. State Department accused the St. Petersburg institution of offering foreign students courses in the construction of missiles and weapons of massive destruction.

In 1998, after the State Department citation, the university dismissed 25 Iranian students. Later, the university signed an agreement with Teheran Technical University to train 500 Iranians over a period of eight years in a $2.5 million contract.

Savalyev denied the charges. "The Americans have launched an attack on his establishment because they themselves want to train the Iranians and sell them weapons," he told the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper.

Russian officials insisted that their aid to Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr is for peaceful purposes. "The nature of Iran's civilian nuclear program has been confirmed by recognized international organizations such as the IAEA," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said. "We think that Iran has the right to develop nuclear programs of a non-military nature, in line with international treaties and agreements."

In a related development, Uzbekistan has determined that nuclear material found in an Iranian truck bound for Pakistan was not weapon-grade material.

Officials said an investigation of the truck that tried to enter Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan on Saturday night examined the 10 containers of radioactive material. They said nuclear scientists in Tashkent determined that the containers did not contain any material that could be used to manufacture weapons.

Radio Free Europe's bureau in Alma Ata reported that the cargo was loaded by a private Kazakh company in Shymkent in southern Kazakhstan.

Uzbek sources said the Iranian driver carried documents that the truck was carrying stainless steel and that the shipment did not emit radiation. Customs officers stopped the truck after their equipment registered that the vehicle emitted 100 times more radiation than the approved level.

The sources said the trailer was returned to Kazakhstan on Saturday night.

U.S. officials said Iran has tried to smuggle nuclear material from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, U.S. intelligence suspected that two nuclear bombs were smuggled from Kazakhstan to Teheran.