Recent reports said Jundallah group kidnapped nuclear expert in Isfahan and would question him on nuclear secrets unless Iran released 200 Sunni prisoners.

Source:

October 10, 2010

Iran said that a man kidnapped by a Sunni rebel group and claimed to be a nuclear expert had nothing to do with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, ISNA news agency reported Sunday.

There had been reports that the Jundallah (Soldiers of God) group had kidnapped a nuclear expert by the name of Amir-Hossein Shirani this week in the central city of Isfahan and would question him on nuclear secrets unless Iran released 200 Sunni prisoners.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, however, said that the kidnapped person used to work for the organization as contractor, welder and driver but was not a nuclear expert.

The spokesman said that the kidnapping had nothing to do with the atomic organization and was probably a personal matter.

The Jundollah group is accused by Iran of drug-trafficking, kidnapping and bombings in the south-eastern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan.

Tehran also accuses Jundollah of sowing discord between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority in Iran. The group says it is fighting against discrimination and for the rights of the Sunnis.

The Jundollah leader Abdolmalek Rigi was arrested earlier this month and hanged in June in the Evin prison in Tehran.

Meanwhile Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Saturday that Iran has successfully stopped the probability of Iranian nuclear experts defecting to West by having improved their working privileges.

He did not further elaborate and refrained to say whether there have been any nuclear defectors or not.

This past summer, an Iranian scientist claimed that he was abducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2009 in Saudi Arabia, and was forcefully transported from there to the U.S. for disclosing classified information on Iran’s military nuclear program.

The man returned to Iran in mid-July after claiming he had fled from the CIA. Amiri said he would disclose all details in due time but after almost four months, there have been no reports yet as to how he managed to get out of the U.S. and back to Tehran.

Iran has said it was ready to resume nuclear talks with the world powers. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday once again proclaimed Iran’s readiness to resume the talks either in October or November.

Observers believe that as long as Iran refuses to accept the world powers’ demand to suspend its uranium enrichment program, the talks would be, like in the recent years, futile again. World powers have not modified their demands and Iran is remaining uncompromising.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has on several occasions said that Iran would be ready for talks but stressed that the talks should first acknowledge Iran’s legitimate rights to pursue peaceful nuclear projects, including the enrichment process.

The United Nations Security Council, the U.S. and some EU states have ordered economic sanctions against Iran for its uranium enrichment drive and suspicions that it is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.