Iranian Entity: Karaj Nuclear Research Centre for Medicine and Agriculture

Part of the AEOI (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran - see separate entity record) research division; listed by the British government in 2008 as an entity of potential concern for WMD-related procurement; listed by the Japanese government in 2008 as an entity of concern for proliferation relating to nuclear weapons; on August 12, 2008, added to the Specially Designated National (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freezing its assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting transactions with U.S. parties, pursuant to Executive Order 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems; listed by the European Union on April 21, 2007, pursuant to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1747, as an entity whose funds and economic resources, and those it owns, holds or controls, must be frozen by E.U. member states, with some exceptions, and within their jurisdiction; E.U. member states must also ensure that funds or economic resources are not made available to or for the benefit of the listed entity; listed in an annex to U.N. Security Council resolution 1747 of March 24, 2007, as an entity involved in Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile activities; with some exceptions, the U.N. designation requires states to freeze the financial assets on their territories which are owned or controlled by the entity, by its agents, or by entities it controls; the U.N. designation also requires states to ensure that funds, financial assets or economic resources are prevented from being made available by their nationals or by any persons or entities within their territories, to or for the benefit of the entity; intended recipient of four rotary vacuum pumps, components and accessories for use with vacuum pumps, the procurement of which (through Kavoshyar Iran Company - see separate entity record) was denied on April 11, 2003, by a member state of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG); identified by the British government in February 1998, as having procured goods and/or technology for weapons of mass destruction programs (specifically nuclear), in "addition to doing non-proliferation related business;" founded in 1986; located in Karaj city, 40 km northwest of Tehran; location declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2003; placed under IAEA inspection as of November 2003; under construction but partially operating in November 2003.

Visited by the IAEA on August 12, 2003, subsequent to open-source reports suggesting that the Ramandeh location, which is part of Karaj, was engaged in laser and centrifuge enrichment activities; storage location for a large vacuum vessel (approximately 5m long, 1m in diameter) imported in 2000, that was initially installed at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC); during an IAEA visit to Karaj on October 6, 2003, Iran stated that the vacuum vessel and associated hardware had never been used, and that the equipment was packed for shipment back to the manufacturer; also the storage location for dismantled equipment from a laser enrichment pilot plant at Lashkar Ab'ad; on October 28, 2003, the dismantled laser equipment along with uranium metal was presented to IAEA inspectors, at which time environmental samples were taken; during a visit by the IAEA between December 8-16, 2003, inspectors found two undeclared mass spectrometers; Iranian officials acknowledged that the spectrometers had been used to provide isotope enrichment measurements to the atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) program; according to Australian officials one of the spectrometers was supplied by GBC Scientific, an Australian company, under the condition that it be used only for agricultural and medical research; Iran's use conflicted with these export conditions; visited by the IAEA on May 10 and 11, 2004, to verify the dismantled AVLIS and molecular laser isotope separation (MLIS) equipment.

Also the storage location for dismantled equipment from the Radiochemical Laboratories at the TNRC, which had been used in bench-scale UF6 production; the dismantled equipment and 6.5 kg of UF6 were presented to the IAEA at Karaj on October 12, 2003; IAEA inspectors visited Karaj on January 14 and 15, 2004, to monitor the recovery of nuclear material hold-up from dismantled equipment used in conversion experiments; approximately 1.25kg of uranium in various forms were recovered and samples were taken for destructive analysis.

Karaj has eight affiliated departments: the Cyclotron Accelerator Department which houses 30 million electron volt Belgian cyclotron accelerator, used for medical research, the Health Physics Department, the Ion Beam Application Department, the Nuclear Agriculture Department, the Nuclear Electronics Department, the Nuclear Materials Department, the Nuclear Medicine Department and a Secondary Standard Dosimetry Laboratory; serves as a radioactive waste storage facility; location of small Chinese-supplied calutron; Karaj produces a wide range of radioisotopes and radio pharmaceutical drugs used for diagnostic purposes, as well as nuclear electronic instruments and radiation monitoring devices.