Iran cuts deal with Zimbabwe for uranium

Sunday Telegraph:

The agreement was sealed last month during a visit to Tehran by a close aide to Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president who last weekend celebrated 30 years in power, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

In return for supplying oil, which Zimbabwe desperately needs to keep its faltering economy moving, Iran has been promised access to potentially huge deposits of uranium ore – which can be converted into the basic fuel for nuclear power or enriched to make a nuclear bomb.

"Iran secured the exclusive uranium rights last month when minister of state for Presidential affairs, Didymus Mutasa visited Tehran," said a Zimbabwean government source. "That is when the formal signing of the deal was made, away from the glare of the media."

Mr Mutasa is the former lands minister in the Zanu-PF administration and one of Mr Mugabe's most senior aides.

The revelation came after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, visited Zimbabwe last week to show his support for Mr Mugabe. At a lavish official dinner in his honour on Thursday evening, Mr Ahmadinejad blasted what he termed "expansionist countries" for exerting "satanic pressures on the people of Zimbabwe", adding: "We believe victory is ours, and humiliation and defeat is for our enemies."

Mr Mugabe said both Zimbabwe and Iran were targeted by the West because they wanted to manage their own natural resources.

...

The fact that both countries are ruled by despots who abuse their own people seems to have never entered the minds of these two as a reason for the problems they have. This is such an absurd proposition that it will not pass the giggle test. Who do you thinks controls the resources of countries like Saudi Arabia? It is certainly not the west, even though compared to these two, the Saudis do look like enlightened leaders.

This should put Zimbabwe in violation of UN sanctions against Iran. Since it is a country already under sanctions it will be interesting to see what if anything the UN will do about it.