Azernews.Az

TEHRAN – A news agency affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps reported Wednesday that Shahram Amiri, the nuclear researcher who returned to Iran from the U.S. last week, had been working in the U.S. as an Iranian spy, the latest in a series of competing narratives about Mr. Amiri promoted by Washington and Tehran.

U.S. officials said the Iranian claims that Mr. Amiri was a double agent are false, and that the Central Intelligence Agency had developed a relationship with Mr. Amiri for years prior to his defection to the U.S. During that time, he provided information on Iran's nuclear program, which was corroborated by other sources, the U.S. officials said.

The Fars news agency said on Wednesday that Mr. Amiri made contact with Iranian authorities last year after he arrived in the U.S. He then received guidance and training on intelligence gathering, Fars reported, quoting an unnamed Iranian official.

Fars said Mr. Amiri provided the Islamic Republic with important information about the CIA and about a covert U.S. program aimed at luring Iranians involved with the country's nuclear program to defect to the West.

One American official called the Iranian report that Mr. Amiri was a double agent an act of desperation.

Mr. Amiri ultimately decided to return to Iran, the American official said, because he was "desperate to see his family back home and chose a stupid way to do it - spinning lies to try to burnish his image in Iran." The official added that "the Iranians are playing this for propaganda, and Amiri's playing along - his survival depends on it."

Iran's English daily newspaper, Tehran Times, reported that the country's national broadcast company would make a movie based on Mr. Amiri's life and ordeal, and that a team of young writers is currently already working on the screenplay.

Even if Mr. Amiri had given Iran information on the CIA, the American official said, he couldn't have provided any classified information because he didn't have access to it. The Iranian government is trying "to salvage something from the spectacle of having one of their nuclear people defect," the official said. Though Mr. Amiri chose to return to Iran, the U.S. government still got the information it was seeking on Iran's nuclear program, "information that's been verified and has stood up well over time."

The American official added that Mr. Amiri has a strong incentive to tell stories that are helpful to the Iranian regime. "Amiri's survival - if and how he lives - depends on how helpful he is to the Iranian government," the official said.

The aggressive U.S. response to the Iranian claims is similar to its handling of other recent CIA efforts that spilled unexpectedly into public view.

Iran accused the U.S. of kidnapping Mr. Amiri after he disappeared last summer during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. American officials say he defected. Since he mysteriously reappeared last week - he turned up on July 12 at the Iranian interest section of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington - both U.S. and Iranian officials have tried to paint his story as an intelligence victory for their respective spy agencies.

"The case of Shahram Amiri was an intelligence war between the CIA and us, but Iran was the main architect of this plan and was managing everything," Fars quoted the unnamed Iranian official as saying. Mr. Amiri provided Iranian authorities with a list of people the CIA wants to abduct from Iran to learn about its nuclear program, the report said.

According to the Fars report, Mr. Amiri had been instructed to discover how much the U.S. knew about Iran's nuclear program, as part of Iran's ultimate goal of gathering insight into the CIA. Upon his return, Mr. Amiri also told Iranian authorities about individuals and organizations inside Iran who are cooperating with the CIA, according to Fars.

The Fars report said Mr. Amiri provided details of how the U.S. planned to persuade the world that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the U.S. and some other Western countries suspect Iran is planning to make an atomic bomb.

Since his return to Iran, Mr. Amiri has appeared twice on national television, repeating accusations of his abduction and of torture at the hands of the Americans. In his most recent appearance, on Saturday evening, Mr. Amiri told state TV that the U.S. planned to swap him for three American hikers who have been detained in Iran since last year. The U.S. has denied a swap deal.

U.S. officials have denied kidnapping and torturing Mr. Amiri, countering that he defected freely, was offered the opportunity to stay in the U.S. and was given a $5 million resettlement package. But, they said, he changed his mind and decided to return home, in part because of fears for the safety of his family, whom he had left behind.

Mr. Amiri arrived in Tehran on July 15 to a hero's welcome from Iranian officials and relatives. But after a supervised visit with his family, he was whisked away for interrogation.

At one point, a top Iranian official suggested Tehran wasn't sure which side Mr. Amiri was working for. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters during a trip to Portugal last week that it wasn't clear to him whether Mr. Amiri had been abducted or had defected.

"First we have to determine what has happened in the past two years, then decide if he is a hero or not," Mr. Mottaki said.