has been luring away Iranian nuclear scientists with offers of better jobs and educational opportunities. But he says Iran has stopped that brain drain by paying more attention to the needs and desires of its atomic scientists.
Much of the Western media played the story as Iran saying that its nuclear program was riddled with Western spies. But Ali-Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), never said that.
However, he did say that some scientists who left Iran for greener pastures had spoken to Westerners about Iran’s program. “People who fell for it in the past unfortunately leaked information abroad,” he said.
Salehi’s remarks were actually just a confirmation of news stories that have appeared in the American media for years, saying that the Bush Administration had launched a program offering great money and research opportunities to Iranian nuclear scientists who defected.
Salehi told the Fars news agency in an interview, “The western countries resort to different methods to create problems for Iran in the field of nuclear technology, and one of the old techniques, which is now increasingly used by them, is establishing contact with AEOI experts to lure them to other countries with a better job opportunity.”
Salehi said western states are offering better educational and job opportunities to Iran’s nuclear experts in a bid to convince them to leave the country.
He said the AEOI made two changes to foil the western scheme.
First, “Personnel had access to [all] data in the past, but it is not so today. We don’t have any crucial or clandestine issue, but there is no need for all the personnel to have access to all our data and information,” he said, trying to explain why it would want to hide information if Iran isn’t carrying out any secret nuclear programs, as it insists.
Second, he said his organization has done its best to offer the best living conditions, educational opportunities and salaries to its experts and scientists in order to foil the western lures.
He said his agency had published a pamphlet outlining the techniques the West uses to lure Iranians and “spells out precautionary measures to protect [information] and the lives of scientists.”
Salehi did not say what information had been leaked abroad. But he mentioned that some scientists had information they did not require about “foreign purchases and commercial matters.” The implication was that some defecting scientists had told the West how Iran was buying nuclear equipment that UN sanctions bar from Iran.
Salehi did not say how many scientists had left he program for Western jobs. He simply concluded, “These routes have been blocked. The possibility of information being leaked is almost impossible now.”
Salehi’s remarks contradicted comments made in April 2008 by his predecessor, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, who said the West had tried to ,lure some Iranian nuclear scientists away from the country but none of them accepted the offers.