'Pak scientist gave Iran bomb-grade uranium'

The group, that has given accurate information before, also said Iran is secretly enriching uranium at a military site previously unknown to the UN, despite promising France, Britain and Germany that it would halt all such work.

"(Abdul Qadeer) Khan gave Iran a quantity of HEU (highly enriched uranium) in 2001, so they already have some," Farid Soleiman, a senior spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told reporters.

"I would doubt it was given enough for a weapon," he added.

Soleiman said Khan, who ran a global nuclear black market that supplied Libya and Iran with uranium-enrichment technology until it was shut down earlier this year, also gave Iran a Chinese-developed warhead design sometime between 1994 and 1996.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Khan's network gave Libya the bomb design. It has been trying to find out whether Iran got the design as well, but has no proof that Tehran acquired it.

Diplomats in Vienna who follow the IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, say the NCRI has been the best source of information on Tehran's previously undeclared nuclear program.

The NCRI is the political wing of the exiled group known as the People's Mujahideen Organization. Both are listed by the State Department as terrorist organizations.

Soleiman said that Iran was enriching uranium, a process of purifying it for use as fuel for power plants or bombs, at a site in northeastern Tehran as part of a continuing covert program to develop nuclear weapons.

"It continues to enrich uranium as we speak," Soleiman said.

Iran first pledged in October last year to suspend all uranium enrichment activities in a bid to allay fears it is seeking a bomb. It promised on Sunday to extend the scope of the freeze, sparing it a referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

Soleiman said the enrichment site, called the Center for the Development of Advanced Defense Technology, was run by the defense ministry and located in Lavizan, near a site where the United States suspects Iran conducted secret nuclear work before demolishing all the buildings and carting off the rubble.

He said the NCRI sent the IAEA a letter about the new site a few days ago.

Iran told France, Britain and Germany on Sunday it would freeze all activities related to enrichment while the two sides negotiate a permanent deal on Iran's nuclear program. This will protect Iran from being referred to the UN Security Council when the IAEA board of governors meets on Nov. 25.