Before the recent IAEA report was published I suggested that the work in Iran of the Ukrainian scientist Dr. Vyacheslav Danilenko, who the Washington Post described as "a former Soviet weapons scientist" and "a former Soviet nuclear scientist", was aimed at helping Iran's nano-technology projects as his main expertise is the production nanodiamonds through detonations.

In the annex to its recent report (pdf) the IAEA actually confirms that his cooperation with Iran was relevant to non-nuclear(!) experiments Iran undertook. It does not say what non-nuclear work this was but the surrounding circumstances make it clear that this was related to nanodiamond production. From the annex of the report (emphasis added):

44. The Agency has strong indications that the development by Iran of the high explosives initiation system, and its development of the high speed diagnostic configuration used to monitor related experiments, were assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable in these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career with this technology in the nuclear weapon programme of the country of his origin. The Agency has reviewed publications by this foreign expert and has met with him. The Agency has been able to verify through three separate routes, including the expert himself, that this person was in Iran from about 1996 to about 2002, ostensibly to assist Iran in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra-dispersed diamonds (“UDDs” or “nanodiamonds”), where he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications.

45. Furthermore, the Agency has received information from two Member States that, after 2003, Iran engaged in experimental research involving a scaled down version of the hemispherical initiation system and high explosive charge referred to in paragraph 43 above, albeit in connection with non-nuclear applications. This work, together with other studies made known to the Agency in which the same initiation system is used in cylindrical geometry, could also be relevant to improving and optimizing the multipoint initiation design concept relevant to nuclear applications.

Why doesn't the agency say what "non-nuclear application" this was about? There are not many non-nuclear applications for hemispherical high explosive experiments with nanodiamond production being probably the most obvious ones. If the agency is sure that it was non-nuclear then it certainly knows quite exactly what this was.

Admitting that the experiment was to created nanodiamonds would of course show that the use of the word "ostensibly" in para 44 is ridiculous.

When the major expert on and inventor of nanodiamond production through detonations worked with Iranian scientists for quite some time and Iran thereafter produced nanodiamonds through detonations then there is nothing "ostensibly" in that cooperation. Nothing in the agency report shows that there was any other purpose of what Danilenko did in Iran. That he "also lectured on explosion physics and its applications" is perfectly consistent with work on detonation nanodiamonds production which is one of such applications.

Please also notice that in the last sentence in para 45 the agency only says that this work "could" be relevant to nuclear work. Well, we all "could" be young, pretty and rich. Right? But that doesn't make us so.

There are many dual use technologies that can be used for non-nuclear purposes but also may have applications with nuclear stuff. Any halfway industrialized country has dozens of such technologies. The production of nanodiamonds through detonations is just one of them. Even a culmination of dual-use work in a country does not proof anything with regards to nuclear intentions. It ony shows that the country is further industrializing and makes progress in its scientific capacities.

The IAEA's recent allegation that the Hasaka spinning factory in Syria had something to do with nuclear work was busted as being completely wrong within a mere week. The annex of the IAEA report on Iran is full of innuendo and weasel words "overall", "indicate", "were said to", "may", "could" without providing anything new or definite proof of the old allegations which are based on murky sources.

Under its current director Yukiya Amano who willingly submits to U.S. pressure the IAEA is rapidly losing its neutrality and the credibility it had build over the years. This will in the end damage the case for and its work on non-proliferation work.