Report: Turkey sold Iran Israeli-made devices with nuclear applications

Turkey allegedly tried smuggling made-in-Israel electronic devices to Iran that could be used as parts for nuclear weapons triggers.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Did Turkey violate United Nations Resolution 2231 that does not allow components or technologies that could be used in nuclear weapons to be sold to Iran? The international organization’s Secretariat has asked Israel, among other countries, to help it find out, according to a report Thursday in Yedioth Ahranoth.

The story began last July, said the paper, when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seized a shipment that Turkey was sending to Iran that contained CSP 180/300 model capacitors. These small devices are what is called dual-use technology. High speed capacitors are components that are critical to activate, or trigger, a nuclear weapon. However, capacitors in general are widely used in many common electrical devices.

The twist in the tale is that these specific capacitors were made in Israel, by a Jerusalem-based company called Celem Power Capacitors. So when the UAE notified the UN of the Turks’ alleged offense, its Secretariat, which is empowered to investigate possible violations of Security Council resolutions, wrote to the Israeli government to ask it to “provide pertinent information on the matter forthwith.”

The Israeli company was adamant that it had no idea why its products would be on their way to Iran, reported Yedioth Ahranoth.

“We will cooperate with any investigation,” Celem was quoted as saying. “We will prove that we sold it to Turkey, to an established firm. We don’t sell to enemy countries. Most of our sales are to Europe and the US, but Turkey is not an enemy country and there is no obstacle to trading with it.”

If the legal customer then went on to attempt a smuggling operation to Iran, they added, then “the buyer deceived us.”

Celem’s website states that it has an active R&D center in Jerusalem and holds over 30 patents in various areas of capacitor-related technology. It is a family-owned business established in 1963 that moved from France to Israel in 2003.