Information collected by European secret services shows several suspicious movements
Iran appears to be accelerating the rebuilding of its ballistic missile program, despite the reintroduction last month of United Nations sanctions that prohibit arms sales to the country and ballistic missile activity.
European intelligence sources say that several shipments of sodium perchlorate, the main precursor in the production of the solid propellant that powers Iran’s conventional medium-range missiles, have arrived from China to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas since the so-called snapback mechanism was triggered in late September.
According to these sources, the shipments, which began arriving on September 29, contain two thousand tons of sodium perchlorate purchased by Iran from Chinese suppliers following the 12-day conflict with Israel in June. The purchases are believed to be part of a determined effort to rebuild the Islamic Republic’s depleted missile stocks. Several of the Chinese cargo ships and entities involved are under US sanctions.
The deliveries come after UN sanctions, more than a decade old, were reinstated under the snapback mechanism – a provision for Iranian violations of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement to monitor its nuclear program.
According to sanctions reimposed on Tehran last month, Iran must not carry out any activities related to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. UN member states must also prevent the supply to Iran of materials that could contribute to the country’s development of a nuclear weapons delivery system, which, according to experts, could include ballistic missiles.
States must also prevent weapons assistance from being provided to Iran. China, along with Russia, opposed the reimposition of sanctions, saying they undermine efforts for a “diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue.”
Although the substance shipped – sodium perchlorate – is not specifically mentioned in UN documents on materials banned for export to Iran, it is a direct precursor to ammonium perchlorate, a listed and banned oxidant used in ballistic missiles. However, experts say the fact that the sanctions do not explicitly ban the chemical could give China room to argue that it is not violating any UN ban.
CNN followed the voyages of several cargo ships identified by intelligence sources as being involved in the latest deliveries of sodium perchlorate from Chinese ports to Iran, using ship location data and the social media accounts of their crew members. Many of these ships appear to have made several round trips between China and Iran since late April. Sources say the crew appears to be employed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and that their regular social media posts provide a trail of their stops on the journey between China and Iran.
Among them is the MV Basht, already sanctioned by the US, which left the Chinese port of Zhuhai on September 15, arrived in Bandar Abbas on September 29 and, in the meantime, returned to China.
Following a similar route, the Barzin departed Gaolan on 2 October and arrived at Bandar Abbas on 16 October, before departing again for China on 21 October.
The Elyana left the Chinese port of Changjiangkou on 18 September and arrived in Bandar Abbas on 12 October. Finally, the MV Artavand left the Chinese port of Liuheng and arrived in Bandar Abbas on October 12, with its AIS tracking system turned off to deliberately conceal its movements, according to Western intelligence.
It is unclear whether the Chinese government is aware of the shipments. In response to a CNN question about the transactions, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that despite being “not familiar with the specific situation,” China has “consistently implemented export controls on dual-use items in accordance with its international obligations and national laws and regulations.”
“We want to emphasize that China is committed to peacefully resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through political and diplomatic means and is opposed to sanctions and pressure,” the spokesperson continued, adding that Beijing considered the return of sanctions under the snapback mechanism to be “unconstructive” and a “serious setback” in efforts to “resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.”
Similar shipments had been previously reported, but their intensification since the 12-day war – in which the Israeli military targeted at least a third of the surface-to-surface launchers that fire Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) – suggests a renewed desire by the Islamic Republic to arm itself.
“Iran now needs a lot more sodium perchlorate to replace missiles spent in the war and to increase production. I would expect large shipments to Iran as it tries to rearm, just as I would expect Israel and the US to rush to replace the interceptors and munitions that have been spent,” says Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
The best way to consider the current moment, the expert adds to CNN, is as a pause in hostilities, while each side seeks to rearm.
“Two thousand tons of sodium perchlorate is only enough for about 500 missiles. It’s a lot, but Iran was planning to produce about 200 missiles a month before the war and now it has to replace all the missiles that Israel destroyed or used,” he said.
Long-standing ties
China has long been a diplomatic and economic ally of Iran, which has been the target of sanctions, condemning “unilateral” US sanctions against the country and purchasing the majority of Iran’s oil exports, despite not having declared purchases of Iranian oil for several years.
This energy trade relies on a network of ships that filter Iranian oil to independent refineries off the coast of China, often through intermediary countries, according to analysts, who note that this practice keeps refining separate from Chinese state-owned companies that would be vulnerable to U.S. sanctions. These refineries are known to work with what is often referred to as a shadowy fleet of tankers that use stealth tactics to smuggle sanctioned goods.
European security sources believe that a similarly opaque system, involving shell companies that are little more than fake numbers and billing addresses, has been used to keep sodium perchlorate flowing into Iran. As have more legitimate companies, including two already sanctioned by the US in April for their role in a “network to acquire ingredients for ballistic missile propellants on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Most of the companies involved are based in the port city of Dalian in northeast China, according to information from intelligence sources.
Previous shipments
In February, CNN reported the shipment of 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate from China to Iran. In April, the US had imposed sanctions on several Iranian and Chinese entities, including vessels believed to play a role in a “network to acquire ingredients for ballistic missile propellants on behalf of the IRGC.”
However, shipments continued, intelligence sources say, with the IRGC’s Jihad Organization for Self-Reliance purchasing another thousand tons of sodium perchlorate, which left Taicang, China, aboard the Hamouna, on May 22, and arrived in Bandar Abbas on June 14 or 15. The vessel left for the Iranian port less than a month after a huge explosion on April 27, believed to have been caused by sodium perchlorate, left 70 dead and hundreds injured.
The latest shipments represent much larger quantities in a short space of time. The first of 10 to 12 shipments that European intelligence sources have been tracking arrived in Iran on September 29, two days after the snapback mechanism – triggered in August by Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the JCPOA’s European partners – restored UN sanctions. The other shipments all left China after sanctions were applied.
Tong Zhao, senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says China’s position on the legal status of reimposing sanctions may be related to how Chinese authorities view such shipments.
“Firstly, China – together with Russia and Iran – denounced the legality of the reintroduction of sanctions in a joint letter sent to the UN on October 18, which indicates that Beijing probably does not consider itself bound by the reimposed measures”, according to Zhao.
Had the snapback not been triggered, October 18 would have marked the official end of the 10-year JCPOA, at which point the option to reimpose previous UN sanctions and restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would expire and the Security Council would close Iran’s nuclear dossier.
Indeed, in September, China joined Russia in arguing for a six-month extension of the JCPOA, arguing that more time was needed for diplomatic efforts and pointing to what Beijing considered to be signs that Iran intended to collaborate with the international community in regulating its nuclear program. The United Nations Security Council rejected the China-backed resolution in September, the day before the snapback came into effect.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, in September. (Yao Dawei/Xinhua/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
China was one of six countries – along with France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US – that signed the JCPOA with Iran in 2015. In a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in September, Xi reiterated China’s position that it “attachs importance to Iran’s repeated pledge that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons” and “respects Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy”.
Zhao also points to the fact that the export of sodium perchlorate is not explicitly prohibited under the pre-JCPOA sanctions regime that is now back in force. What the reestablished UN resolutions prohibit, he adds, is the supply of “items, materials, equipment, goods and technology” by member states to Tehran, which could contribute to the development of a nuclear weapons delivery system by Iran.
Therefore, although sodium perchlorate is not mentioned, “it should be covered by the most comprehensive controls on materials used in the production of solid-fuel missiles”, he said, but noted that the fact that it is not explicitly prohibited could leave China and other countries greater room for interpretation.
“Beijing may be aware that these exports indirectly support Iran’s missile program,” adds Zhao, “but it may also view this as a matter of principle – affirming China’s sovereign right to make independent decisions on controlling exports of items not expressly prohibited by the UN.”
CNN’s Simone McCarthy contributed to this report
