Western intelligence says Iran is rearming despite UN sanctions, with China’s help

By Melissa Bell, Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN

(CNN) — Iran appears to be stepping up the rebuilding of its ballistic missile program, despite the reintroduction last month of United Nations sanctions that ban arms sales to the country and ballistic missile activity.

European intelligence sources say several shipments of sodium perchlorate, the main precursor in the production of the solid propellant that powers Iran’s mid-range conventional missiles, have arrived from China to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas since the so-called “snapback” mechanism was triggered at the end of September.

Those sources say the shipments, which began arriving on September 29, contain 2,000 tons of sodium perchlorate bought by Iran from Chinese suppliers in the wake of its 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 cargo ships and Chinese entities involved are under sanctions from the United States.

The deliveries come after more-than-a-decade-old UN sanctions were restored by the snapback mechanism – a provision for Iranian breaches of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal to monitor its nuclear program.

Under the sanctions re-imposed on Tehran last month, Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN member states must also prevent the provision to Iran of materials that could contribute to the country’s development of a nuclear weapons delivery system, which experts say could include ballistic missiles.

States are also required to prevent the provision to Iran of assistance in the manufacture of arms. China, along with Russia, opposed the reimposition of the sanctions, saying it undermines efforts for a “diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue.”

While the shipped substance – sodium perchlorate – is not specifically named in UN documents on materials banned for export to Iran, it is a direct precursor of ammonium perchlorate, a listed and prohibited oxidizer used in ballistic missiles. However, experts say that the sanctions’ failure to explicitly prohibit the chemical may leave China room to argue that it is not in violation of any UN ban.

CNN has followed the journeys of several cargo ships identified by the intelligence sources as being involved in the latest deliveries of sodium perchlorate from Chinese ports to Iran, using ship tracking data and the social media of their crew. Many of those vessels appear to have gone back and forth several times between China and Iran since the end of April. The sources say their crew seem to be employed by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and their regular social media posts provide a trail of their stops on the China to Iran journey.

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 since returned to China.

Following a similar route, the Barzin traveled from Gaolan on October 2 and arrived in Bandar Abbas on October 16, before leaving for China again on October 21.

The Elyana left the Chinese port of Changjiangkou on September 18 and arrived in Bandar Abbas on October 12. 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 obscure its movements, according to Western intelligence.

It’s not clear if the Chinese government is aware of the shipments. In response to a question from CNN about the transactions, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that, while he was “not familiar with the specific situation,” China has “consistently implemented export controls on dual-use items in accordance with its international obligations and domestic laws and regulations.”

“We want to emphasize that China is committed to peacefully resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through political and diplomatic means and opposes sanctions and pressure,” the spokesperson continued, adding that Beijing viewed the return of sanctions under the snapback mechanism as “unconstructive” and a “serious setback” in efforts to “resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.”

Similar shipments had previously been reported, but their intensification since the 12-day war – when the Israeli military targeted at least a third of the surface-to-surface launchers that fire Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) – suggests a renewed eagerness on the part of the Islamic Republic to arm itself.

“Iran needs much more sodium perchlorate now to replace the missiles expended 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 race to replace the interceptors and munitions that were expended,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

The best way to consider the current moment, he told CNN, is as a pause in hostilities, as each side seeks to rearm.

“Two thousand tons of sodium perchlorate are only enough for about 500 missiles. That’s a lot, but Iran was planning on producing something like 200 missiles a month before the war and now must replace all the missiles that either Israel destroyed or it used,” he said.

Long-standing ties

China has long been a diplomatic and economic ally for sanctions-hit Iran, decrying “unilateral” US sanctions against the country and buying up most of Iran’s oil exports, despite not reporting purchases of Iranian oil for several years.

That energy trade relies on a network of vessels that filter Iranian oil to independent refineries in coastal China, often through intermediary countries, according to analysts, who note this practice keeps refinement separate from Chinese state-owned enterprises that would be vulnerable to US sanctions. These so-called teapot refineries are known to work with what’s often referred to as a dark fleet of tankers that use concealing tactics to smuggle sanctioned goods.

European security sources believe a similarly opaque system, involving front companies that are little more than fake numbers and billing addresses, has been used to keep the sodium perchlorate flowing to Iran. As have more legitimate companies, including two already sanctioned by the US back in April for their part in a “network procuring ballistic missile propellant ingredients on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).” Most of the companies involved are based in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian, according to information from the intelligence sources.

Earlier shipments

In February, CNN reported the shipment of 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate to Iran from China. By April, the US had slapped sanctions on several Iranian and Chinese entities, including vessels believed to play a role in “a network procuring ballistic missile propellant ingredients on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

Yet the shipments continued, the intelligence sources say, with the IRGC’s Self Sufficiency Jihad Organization acquiring another 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate which left Taicang in China aboard the Hamouna on May 22 and arrived in Bandar Abbas on June 14 or 15. It set sail for the Iranian port less than a month after a massive explosion there on April 27, believed to have been caused by sodium perchlorate, killed 70 and wounded hundreds.

The latest shipments represent much bigger quantities in a short space of time. The first of the 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 European partners to the JCPOA – restored UN sanctions. The others all left China after the sanctions were in place.

Tong Zhao, a senior fellow with the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that China’s position on the legal status of the reimposition of sanctions may be related to how its authorities would view such shipments.

“First and foremost, China – along with Russia and Iran – has denounced the legality of the snapback in a joint letter to the UN issued on October 18, indicating that Beijing likely 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 file.

Indeed, China joined with Russia in September to push for a six-month extension of the JCPOA, arguing that more time was needed for diplomatic efforts and pointing to what Beijing saw as signs that Iran wanted to engage with the international community on regulating its nuclear program. The UN Security Council voted down the China-backed resolution in September, one day before the snapback came into force.

Beijing was one of the 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 stance that it “attaches 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 pointed to the fact that the export of sodium perchlorate is not explicitly banned under the pre-JCPOA sanctions regime that is now back in force. What the reinstated UN resolutions do prohibit, he added, is the provision by member states to Tehran of “items, materials, equipment, goods, and technology” which could contribute to Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon delivery system.

So, while sodium perchlorate is not named, it “should fall under the broader catch-all controls on materials used in solid-fuel missile production,” he said, but noted that the fact that it is not explicitly prohibited may leave China and other countries with greater room for interpretation.

“Beijing may be aware that such exports indirectly support Iran’s missile program,” Zhao said, “yet it may also view this as a matter of principle – asserting China’s sovereign right to make independent export-control decisions on items not expressly banned by the UN.”

CNN’s Simone McCarthy contributed to this report.

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