Russia Seizes Radioactive Material Headed for Iran

Radioactive material has been seized from the luggage of a passenger headed from Moscow to Tehran, Russia’s customs agency reported on Friday.

The luggage belonged to a man traveling to Tehran and was seized at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. The unnamed man has been turned over to the Russian authorities and a criminal investigation has been launched.

It is uncertain exactly when officials seized the 18 pieces of radioactive Sodium-22 material from the luggage. Sodium-22 is an isotope that has no weapons usage, although it is used in medical equipment.

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According to authorities, the luggage contained radiation levels 20 times larger than the norm.

“Tests showed that Sodium-22 could have only been obtained as the result of the work of a nuclear reactor,” said a statement released by the Russian customs services.

However, a spokesman for the Rosatom nuclear agency, Sergei Novikov, has refuted those claims. Novikov has said that particle accelerators, not nuclear reactors, produced the isotope.

Russia and Iran have an agreement over the supply of medical isotopes. However, it is unclear why medical isotopes would be transported from Russia to Iran via a person's individual luggage.

The incident follows tension that has been escalating in the past month between Iran and the U.S. over a captured U.S. drone and over a recently published report that highlights Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The report, which was released in November by the United Nations International Atomic Energy, directly implicates Iran in building a bomb.

Iran claims that its nuclear program is aimed solely at energy purposes, but critics in the United States, Israel, and other countries believe Iran’s nuclear weapons are not for the peaceful purposes the country alleges.

Both the United States and Israel have publically stated that they would not rule out a military option to dealing with Iran if sanctions and diplomatic means fail to curb the expansion of the country’s nuclear program.