#SaudiCables: Iran allegedly 'shipped nuclear equipment' to Sudan
One of the leaked top-secret Saudi diplomatic memos appears to show Saudi diplomats in Khartoum believed that Iran shipped advanced nuclear equipment including centrifuges to Sudan in 2012.
The unauthenticated document said, “The embassy's sources have said Iranian containers have arrived this week at Khartoum airport that contain delicate technical equipment in the form of fast centrifuges for enriching uranium, a second shipment is expected to arrive during the week.”
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The cable about the nuclear shipment [WikiLeaks] |
Sudan is not known to have a nuclear programme, nor is Iran suspected to have shipped any nuclear equipment to Sudan in the past.
The cable, which provides information about the shipment, does not provide details on the source of the embassy's information or any further evidence of the shipment.
In October 2012, a Sudanese munitions factory was destroyed in a mysterious explosion, which the Sudanese government blamed on an Israeli air raid but no nuclear dimension was believed involved in the blast.
Iran and the P5+1 powers - Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - agreed in April on the main outlines of what would be a historic agreement scaling down Tehran's nuclear programme.
Another cable leaked this week said that then Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal wrote to the Saudi king about an Egyptian-Sudanese plot to assassinate South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit in 2011.
WikiLeaks released more than 60,000 Saudi diplomatic cables, on Friday. The non-profit journalistic organization has said it plans to publish about half a million documents and the released cables are “just one tenth of what we have”.
Saudi Arabia seems to have acknowledged the authenticity of the documents in general but warns that some “fake” documents may be included among the authentic cables.