BRIEF ON IRAN	 
	Representative Office of 
	The National Council of Resistance of Iran	
	No. 548	
	Wednesday, November 27, 1996 
 
 
3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007  
 


BRIEF ON IRAN WISHES YOU A VERY HAPPY 
THANKSGIVING DAY. 
THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE BOI WILL BE 
PUBLISHED ON MONDAY DECEMBER 2. 

Iran's Deep Dark Secret, U.S. News & World Report, 
December 2 
 
	Iran is apparently going deep underground to 
keep its nuclear weapons development program 
hidden from the world.  According to European-based 
intelligence sources, the Iranians are attempting to 
build a network of mine shafts several hundred yards 
in depth in preparation for testing various nuclear 
devices.  The sources say that tests carried out in deep 
mine shafts make detection by outsiders more 
difficult.  Tehran already has begun gathering the 
technology it needs for the effort, telling civilian mine 
industries on several continents that it plans to 
improve the mining of uranium ore in its own Kazd 
mines.... 
 
 
Iran's Military Buildup Continues, Reuters, November 
26 
 
	Iran will soon receive a third Russian 
submarine, increasing its military muscle in a region 
that controls about 70 percent of world oil reserves, 
Western naval sources said on Tuesday. 
	"With three submarines this increases the 
concern and poses more of a problem in case of a 
crisis," said a Western naval officer who watches Iran. 
	"With three vessels Iran's submarine force 
has to be taken more seriously," an Arab expert said 
earlier. 
	The comment came as state-run Tehran 
Radio reported Iranian naval forces held mine 
exercises at the mouth of the Gulf and coped with 
mock chemical weapons attacks in the Gulf and the 
Gulf of Oman on Tuesday -- the sixth day of 10-day 
war games. 
	Tehran said earlier its forces would fire an 
updated version of the Silkworm surface-to-surface 
missile known as Piroozi (Victory)-75, apparently an 
Iranian version of the Chinese-made missile. 
	Some 100 ships, including destroyers, 
gunboats, hovercraft and Iran's two existing Russian-
built submarines were taking part in the major 
exercise, supported by 40 fixed-wing aircraft and 
helicopters. 
	The third submarine, the western naval 
sources said, has just left Russia and could reach Iran 
in weeks....

 
Concerned About Iran's Nuclear Efforts, Radio Israel, 
November 25 
 
	In his first working meeting with Israeli 
Foreign Minister David Levy, the Ukrainian President 
informed the Minister that Ukraine has changed its 
mind regarding the sale of tanks to Iran. 
	In the meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister 
expressed concern about Iran's efforts to obtain 
nuclear capability and said Iran might gain nuclear 
capability because Ukraine has accepted to provide it 
with nuclear furnace turbines.... 
 
 
Court Trial in Germany Spells Trouble in Tehran, 
Christian Science Monitor, November 25 
 
	Massive protests outside a Western embassy 
in Tehran evidently orchestrated by elements of Iran's 
government.... 
	The source of the tension is the so-called 
Mykonos murder case, in which five intelligence 
agents of Iran are on trial for the 1992 slaying of 
Iranian Kurdish leader Sadiq Sharafkindi and three 
colleagues in the Mykonos restaurant, a Greek eatery 
in Berlin. German prosecutors have also explicitly 
accused Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and 
the country's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali 
Khamenei, of directly ordering the murders.... 
	But if the verdict in the case, expected in 
January, come down "guilty," the century-old special 
relationship between Germany and Iran is likely to 
suffer permanent damage. Earlier this year a federal 
court issued an arrest warrant for the chief of the 
Iranian secret police, Ali Fallahiyan, implicating him 
in the murders. A federal court is considering the 
Mykonos prosecutors' motions for arrest warrants for 
Rafsanjani and Mr. Khamenei.... 
	All this means that the controversial policy 
of "critical dialogue" with Iran —long a sore point in 
European relations with the United States, which 
favors isolating Iran— may be up for revision. 
	Uwe Hiksch, a Social Democrat in the 
Bundestag and a critic of German policy, says the 
Mykonos trial has been "decisive" in changing minds 
on Iran. The Iranian government's demand that the 
trial be halted was seen as an unacceptable attack on 
the justice system, he said. 
	And the prosecutors' charges of orders from 
the top have made many Germans question the value 
of "dialogue" at any price....