ABUJA, (Reuters) – Nigeria will report Iran to the U.N. Security Council if it finds any evidence that an illegal arms shipment it seized two weeks ago violated U.N. sanctions, Nigerian Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia said yesterday. Ajumogobia met his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki late on Thursday to discuss the shipment, intercepted by Nigeria’s secret service in the port of Lagos and found to contain rockets and other explosives.
Mystery surrounds the intended destination of the weapons, but investigations have focused on two Iranians believed to be senior members of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite military force, diplomatic and security sources say. “One of the hiccups in the ongoing investigation was the fact that an Iranian national, who is some way complicit … is in the Iranian Embassy,” Ajumogobia said, adding that Mottaki had since allowed Nigerian security agents to question the man.
But Nigeria has been unable to question a second Iranian in the embassy because he has diplomatic immunity, Ajumogobia said.
The two Iranians are believed to be members of al-Quds, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards that specializes in foreign operations on behalf of Iran, diplomatic sources said.
The arms appear to put Iran in breach of U.N. sanctions imposed over its refusal to halt a sensitive nuclear program, diplomats said. As a U.N. member, Nigeria would be obliged to report the matter and seize the shipment if that were the case.
A Nigerian diplomat in New York told Reuters that Nigeria would soon inform the U.N. Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee about the incident.
“We are definitely going to inform the sanctions committee,” he said. “We are working on it. We are obliged to inform the sanctions committee, and we will do it.”
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States had discussed the matter with Abuja. “If these reports are true, these are potential violations of Security Council resolutions,” Crowley said. “We will obviously encourage and assist Nigeria in any way that we can with its investigation.”
Ajumogobia told Reuters that Mottaki had promised Iran’s cooperation with an investigation into the shipment and said he did not believe it had broken U.N. sanctions.
“The Security Council resolution, to which Nigeria was party, was dealing with nuclear materials. There’s no indication that’s implicated here,” Ajumogobia said.
