AMAD Project (or AMAD Plan, fa, پروژه آماد) is an
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
ian scientific project, started in 1989 and stopped in 2003 according to
IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...
, that is suspected by
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
to have nonetheless continued, with the aim of developing nuclear weapons. Iran have denied the existence of any program aimed at the development of a nuclear explosive device, and in particular denied the existence of the AMAD Plan when reporting additional details to IAEA in 2015.
IAEA investigation
Starting in 2005, IAEA gathered information from its member states indicating that Iran had launched in the late 1980s a plan aimed at the development of a nuclear explosive device. This information indicated that these activities started within Departments of the Physics Research Centre (PHRC), and by the early 2000s came to be focused on projects of the Amad plan under the leadership of
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi ( fa, محسن فخریزاده مهابادی ;195827 November 2020) was an Iranian nuclear physicist and scientist. He was regarded as the chief of Iran's nuclear program.
Born in Qom in 1958, Fakhrizadeh joine ...
.
According to IAEA, the programme gathered several projects aiming at designing and integrating nuclear payloads (projects 110 and 111), manufacture explosive components (project 3), enrich uranium (project 4), ...
[Anthony Cordesman, ''The Gulf Military Balance: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions'', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014, p. 94.]
Same information indicated that "activities under the AMAD Plan were brought to a halt in late 2003 and that the work was fully recorded, equipment and work places were either cleaned or disposed of so that there would be little to identify the sensitive nature of the work that had been undertaken."
[Board of Directors, ]
Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme
', IAEA, December 2015.
In August 2015, under the Road-map, Iran provided the IAEA with additional details and denied the existence of any program aimed at the development of a nuclear explosive device, and in particular denied the existence of the AMAD Plan.
In a 2015 report named ''Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran’s Nuclear Programme'', IAEA assessed that:
:"a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device were conducted in Iran prior to the end of 2003 as a coordinated effort, and some activities took place after 2003
utthese activities did not advance beyond feasibility and scientific studies, and the acquisition of certain relevant technical competences and capabilities. The Agency has no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009".
2018 Israeli accusations
On 30 April 2018, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
referred to AMAD project to argue that Iran continued to pursue a program of nuclear weapons development.
Based on 100,000 documents allegedly smuggled by
Mossad
Mossad ( , ), ; ar, الموساد, al-Mōsād, ; , short for ( he, המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים, links=no), meaning 'Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations'. is the national intelligence agency ...
from Iran, he stated that the "mission statement
f AMAD project
F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...
was to design, produce and test five warheads, each with ten kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missile"
. Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif
Mohammad Javad Zarif Khansari ( fa, محمدجواد ظریف خوانساری, Mohammad-Javād Zarīf Khānsāri ; ; born 8 January 1960) is an Iranian career diplomat and academic. He was the foreign minister of Iran from 2013 until 2021 in th ...
tweeted to say the evidence was a "rehash of old allegations" which had already been dealt with by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
According to
David Albright
David Albright, M.Sc., is an American physicist and a weapons expert who is the founder of the non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), its current president, and author of several books on proliferation of atom ...
, of the
Institute for Science and International Security
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is a nonprofit, non-governmental institution to inform the public about "science and policy issues affecting international security".
Founded in 1993, the group is led by founder and ...
, the archive said that Iran's weapon program was more advanced than believed previously in the West and that should Iran pull out of the JCPOA it would be able to produce weapons swiftly, possibly within a few months.
Iran Was Closer to a Nuclear Bomb Than Intelligence Agencies Thought
Michael Hirsh, Foreign Policy, 13 November 2018
See also
* Iran and weapons of mass destruction
Iran is not known to currently possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has signed treaties repudiating the possession of WMDs including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty ...
* Iran–Israel relations
Iran–Israel relations can be divided into four major phases: the ambivalent period from 1947 to 1953, the friendly period during the era of the Pahlavi dynasty from 1953 to 1979, the worsening period following the Iranian Revolution from 1979 ...
* Iran–Israel proxy conflict
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy war between Iran and Israel. The conflict involves threats and hostility by Iran's leaders against Israel, and their decla ...
References
{{Iran–Israel proxy conflict
Nuclear program of Iran
Iran–Israel proxy conflict