Iranian Laptop With Nuclear Data Stolen in Tehran (Update1)

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- A laptop computer belonging to an Iranian nuclear scientist and carrying confidential data about Iran’s atomic facilities was stolen in Tehran.

“Foreign intelligence services” stole the computer, the Iranian Jahan News Web site said without giving further details.

Iran is under three sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions, the first imposed in December 2006, for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. The U.S. has its own sanctions and the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a measure to further restrict trade with Iran by targeting companies that supply the country with refined petroleum products.

Iran rejects allegations by the U.S. and its allies that its nuclear activity is aimed at production of weapons and says its program has only peaceful aims, such as electricity generation and medical research.

Iran won’t send its uranium abroad for further enrichment, though an exchange of the material for imported nuclear fuel is possible if the transfer takes place inside the country, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said earlier today.

Uranium ‘Swap’

“We will definitely not send our 3.5 percent enriched uranium abroad,” Mottaki was cited as saying by the state-run Iranian Students News Agency. “But we see a simultaneous swap as possible.”

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency negotiated a plan for provision of reactor fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran last month. Representatives of the U.S., Russia and France met with an Iranian delegation at IAEA headquarters in Vienna from Oct. 19 to 21 to discuss the deal.

Under the proposal, Iran would get back uranium in a more highly enriched form suitable for use in a reactor and not in an atomic bomb.

The IAEA declined to comment on Mottaki’s remarks.

Mottaki said media accounts that portray the West as still waiting for Iran’s response to the proposal are “mental warfare” and send a message that Iran must “give us the response we want to hear.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ali Sheikholeslami in London at alis2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Torday at ptorday@bloomberg.net.