- DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - A Turkish police official
said on Sunday the amount of uranium recently seized by officers was around
5 ounces and did not weigh 33 lbs as initially reported.
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- The state-run Anatolian news agency on Saturday reported
that paramilitary police in the southern province of Sanliurfa detained
two men after discovering 15 kg of uranium in a lead container hidden beneath
a taxi car seat.
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- But that amount had included the weight of the container
and the radioactive material was actually around 140 grams, an official
from the gendarmes force in Sanliurfa said on condition of anonymity.
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- The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna was
also skeptical because the amount previously reported would have been enough
to make a nuclear bomb, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters on Sunday.
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- The Turkish official said the weapons-grade uranium was
seized on Friday after police stopped the vehicle on a road in Sanliurfa,
which borders Syria and is about 155 miles from the Iraqi border.
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- The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between
the United States and Iraq, accused by Washington of developing weapons
of mass destruction.
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- President Bush claims Baghdad has tried to acquire uranium
to develop a nuclear bomb as his administration works to build international
support for a military operation to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
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- The IAEA also questioned the contents because the word
uranium was spelled in a strange way on the container, which itself was
made in West Germany, Fleming said.
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- "We have no primary information and are trying to
verify the contents of the object but it's very suspicious," she said.
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- The Anatolian agency on Sunday quoted Sanliurfa's provincial
governor Muzaffer Dilek as saying experts had yet to determine the amount
of uranium but that intelligence agents believed it only weighed about
100 grams.
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- Dilek also said police charged the two men in connection
with the case but released them pending trial.
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- "These people said they believe that what was given
to them was medical material," he said, adding police were now looking
for two other suspects.
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